To: The United States House of Representatives
Tell your Representative: Stop Trump’s NAFTA!
Dear Representative,
I urge you to oppose Donald Trump’s renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump’s new NAFTA is sure to undermine environmental, public health and food safeguards across North America and in our state.
NAFTA 2.0 trade tribunals would threaten people and the planet. NAFTA 2.0 rules not contained in the investment chapter would be enforced by government-to-government lawsuits before panels of trade lawyers. Those panels have the authority to impose retaliatory trade sanctions such as higher tariffs on the exports of countries that fail to roll back regulations. This process presents a threat to sensible environmental and public health policies.
Regulatory review provisions in Trump’s NAFTA also would establish administrative institutions like a regulatory review body. This could be thought of as an international version of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, created by Ronald Reagan, which has a reputation for delaying and blocking federal agency regulations in the U.S.
The regulatory review process could also establish inappropriate procedures like mutual recognition of safety standards and a bureaucratic process for identifying alleged excessive burdens on business. This could slow down or stop promulgation of environmental, climate, and health regulations.
Among other negative consequences, regulatory review provisions could encourage the inappropriate use of business-friendly, cost-benefit analysis that would hinder public interest regulations. The process inherently gives disproportionate weight to quantitative data and economic costs, while diminishing the perceived importance of qualitative benefits such as saving lives, maintaining the equilibrium of the global ecosystem, and protecting wild places.
Please reject Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA.
Sincerely,
I urge you to oppose Donald Trump’s renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump’s new NAFTA is sure to undermine environmental, public health and food safeguards across North America and in our state.
NAFTA 2.0 trade tribunals would threaten people and the planet. NAFTA 2.0 rules not contained in the investment chapter would be enforced by government-to-government lawsuits before panels of trade lawyers. Those panels have the authority to impose retaliatory trade sanctions such as higher tariffs on the exports of countries that fail to roll back regulations. This process presents a threat to sensible environmental and public health policies.
Regulatory review provisions in Trump’s NAFTA also would establish administrative institutions like a regulatory review body. This could be thought of as an international version of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, created by Ronald Reagan, which has a reputation for delaying and blocking federal agency regulations in the U.S.
The regulatory review process could also establish inappropriate procedures like mutual recognition of safety standards and a bureaucratic process for identifying alleged excessive burdens on business. This could slow down or stop promulgation of environmental, climate, and health regulations.
Among other negative consequences, regulatory review provisions could encourage the inappropriate use of business-friendly, cost-benefit analysis that would hinder public interest regulations. The process inherently gives disproportionate weight to quantitative data and economic costs, while diminishing the perceived importance of qualitative benefits such as saving lives, maintaining the equilibrium of the global ecosystem, and protecting wild places.
Please reject Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA.
Sincerely,
Why is this important?
Trump wants to use NAFTA 2.0 to lock in his rollback of essential environmental, public health, and consumer regulations. He also wants to block new safeguards related to the safety of food, chemicals, pesticides, and GMOs.
Congress could stop this attack on critical protections for people and the planet. But we need your help to urge them to act!
Congress could stop this attack on critical protections for people and the planet. But we need your help to urge them to act!