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Iowa politicians, commodity groups and Iowa’s business community are celebrating news of a deal that will lead to U.S. House ratification of a new trade agreement to replace NAFTA. Canada and Mexico are Iowa’s two largest trade markets.
Congressman Steve King, 4t district Republican from Kiron, said today House Democrats “didn’t want to face criticism” so they announced a deal on the USMCA on the same morning they revealed articles of impeachment.” King accused House Democrats of trying to use a passage of the USMCA as “frosting” to cover up the impeachment saga. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said President Trump kept his campaign promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and Grassley said Americans will reap many benefits from the new deal.
His Senate counterpart Republican Joni Ernst, though, said an end-of-the-year vote in the Democratically-led House is “dangerous,” because Republicans who lead the Senate won’t have time to hold a vote to ratify the USMCA before 2020.
Iowa Democratic Congress members were pretty much in favor of the trade deal announcement. Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer, Dubuque told Radio Iowa that public confirmation of the deal just happens to come on the same day House Democrats announced articles of impeachment against the president. Cindy Axne, a Democrat from West Des Moines, said passage of the USMCA provides certainty for Iowa farmers and manufacturers. Congressman Dave Loebsack, of Iowa City, said Democrats won “robust enforcement mechanisms” that weren’t in the original USMCA.
