Associations reaffirm USMCA support

Shortly before a vote in the US senate that would bring the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade agreement into place, the leaders of the respective chemical industry associations publicly reaffirmed their support for it. This, they said, “continues years of collaboration … on North American trade issues, including a joint March 2017 statement on industry priorities for modernising NAFTA”.

“For the United States in particular, companies eyeing the US shale gas revolution and chemical production boom should soon have even greater confidence to invest, knowing that they will be able to trade freely with our industry’s largest trading partners in Canada and Mexico,” said Chris Jahn, CEO and president of the American Chemistry Council (ACC).

Canada and Mexico have already ratified USMCA and Bob Masterson, president and CEO of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada, said that removing tariffs and other barriers to trade has changed cross-border business conditions of doing business and encouraged regional investment and economic integration. “Canadian, Mexican, and US goods – including chemicals, and goods that require chemicals as inputs – are competitive in the global marketplace because they are products of integrated North American supply chains,” added Masterson.

Similarly, Miguel Benedetto Alexanderson, president of Mexico’s ANIQ, said that USMCA enables all three countries “to evaluate where they may be able to cooperate and regulate chemicals more efficiently. We see greater regulatory cooperation as an unqualified win for companies here in Mexico and consumers throughout the region.”