Assemblyman Robert Smullen (R,C,Ref-Meco) today announced that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will enter into force. This trade agreement, signed by President Trump in 2018, is a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The USMCA contains modernized approaches to freer and fairer trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, including improvements to digital trade and rules of origin. As is the goal with most trade agreements, the USMCA seeks to create jobs as well as help American workers, manufacturers and farmers. Once fully implemented, the USMCA is expected to lift U.S. gross domestic product by as many as 1.2 percentage points and create up to 589,000 jobs, according to the International Trade Commission.

“The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement received broad bi-partisan support, and it should produce real benefits across broad swaths of the economy, including agriculture, technology, manufacturing and other sectors,” said Smullen. “The aim of renegotiating NAFTA was to promote more predictable trade relations that will, in turn, spur investment. It is a high priority of mine to draw constituents’ attention to the USMCA’s entry into force because of the current uncertainty of underlying financial and job markets.

“As a proponent of agribusiness, the USMCA will largely benefit farmers in upstate New York. With Mexico and Canada being two of the country’s largest farm-good buyers, the agreement is a win for our agriculture industry. Dairy farmers will no longer be subject to Canadian underselling of U.S. products, and rural Americans will face far fewer challenges to accessing Canada’s market. The effects of this agreement will be extremely positive for upstate residents.”