Overview
- Sen. Ruben Gallego pressed President Donald Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to pursue a renegotiation that prevents Chinese state-supported firms in Mexico from using USMCA as a back door into the U.S. market.
- He called for tighter rules of origin and enforcement of the pact’s $16-per-hour labor value content requirement for certain automotive components.
- He urged creation of a wage floor in Mexico’s manufacturing sector, citing average auto-worker pay of $5.70 an hour in Mexico versus $35.30 in the United States.
- He asked for restoring and boosting funding for the Labor Department’s international labor programs and for a streamlined worker-complaint mechanism.
- The push comes as USTR opens an excess-capacity investigation into China and 15 other partners and as Greer prepares to begin the USMCA six-year review talks with Mexico’s Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard next week.