On July 1, 2020, the new Canada-United States-Mexico trade Agreement (CUSMA) entered into force
Signed on the margins of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Buenos Aires in November 2018, CUSMA outcomes preserve key elements of the long-lasting trading relationship and incorporate new and updated provisions that seek to address 21st-century trade issues and promote opportunities for the nearly half a billion people who call North America home.
Read more about free trade agreements HERE.
Quick Facts
- The new NAFTA preserves the important benefits of NAFTA, modernizes the agreement, and makes it easier for Canadian companies to benefit from preferential access to the U.S and Mexican markets.
- In particular, the new agreement:
- safeguards more than $2-billion a day in cross-border trade and tariff-free access for 99.9 per cent of Canada’s U.S.-bound exports. It will preserve tariff-free access to our largest trading partner, supporting hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs, now and into the future.
- preserves crucial cross-border auto supply chains, and provides an incentive to produce vehicles in Canada.
- retains and strengthens fair and impartial dispute settlement process for trade remedies that forestry workers have long relied on to protect their livelihoods from unjust trade actions.
- preserves NAFTA’s cultural exception, which helps safeguard more than 650,000 jobs in cultural industries.
- contains ambitious and enforceable labour obligations to protect workers from discrimination in the workplace, in particular on the basis of gender. The enforceable labour chapter levels the playing field for Canadian workers.
- enshrines enforceable standards for clean air and marine pollution through a strengthened environment chapter.
- removes the investor-state dispute resolution system, which has allowed large corporations to sue the Canadian government for regulating in the public interest. Known as ISDS, this has cost Canadian taxpayers more than $275 million in penalties and legal fees.
- eliminates a proportionality clause that raised concerns for some Canadians regarding energy sovereignty and security. This provides additional security for Canada’s resource producers and workers that decisions on the future of their sector will be made by Canadians.
Source/Image Credit: Government of Canada
