The USMCA: Updating NAFTA by Drawing on the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No. 20-06
Mexico Center, Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy (2020)
14 Pages Posted: 24 Feb 2020
Date Written: February 21, 2020
Abstract
As the first report in this series indicated, significant portions of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) have been taken either verbatim or with some modifications from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). This was a very logical approach given that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was negotiated more than 27 years ago (in 1991-92), and what was at the time the world’s most modern and deepest free trade agreement (FTA) was the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as negotiated by the Obama Administration on behalf of the United States and 11 other countries. Some TPP-based provisions have been discussed earlier; this report focuses on others of significance, including small and medium-sized enterprises; state-owned enterprises; competition law; competitiveness and business facilitation; corruption; good regulatory practices and regulatory coherence; sanitary and photosanitary measures (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT); and standards under sectoral annexes.
Keywords: NAFTA, USMCA, TPP, small and medium-sized enterprises, state-owned enterprise, competition law, competitiveness and business facilitation, corruption, good regulatory practices and regulatory coherence, SPS, TBT
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