With the eyes of Capitol Hill, (and the rest of the country) focused on House Democrats leveling two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) pointed to the announcement of a new bipartisan trade deal that he called “groundbreaking.”
The updated United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, negotiated by Robert E. Lighthizer, the trade representative hand-picked by Trump, seeks to modernize trade relations between the three North American countries, fulfilling a campaign promise from Trump and receiving approval from both sides of the aisle.
Tuesday was merely an announcement of the final version of the deal, but with support from both Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-MD), it seems a lock to pass into law with relative ease.
Trump called the announcement a “big win for America,” and indeed it is a big win for the president, both fulfilling his campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA as well as looking likely to boost an already strong economy heading into a 2020 election year. It also showed that he is capable of working across the aisle with Democrats, even as they work to forcibly remove him from office.
Perdue, a key ally of the president, lauded the deal as a win for American citizens. He said in a prepared statement:
“President Trump is fighting for American workers, farmers, and manufacturers, and there is no better evidence of this than his commitment to negotiating better trade deals with countries across the world. The USMCA is a groundbreaking deal that will dramatically improve the way we do business with our closest trading partners. It will create nearly 180,000 new jobs and increase U.S. GDP by about $68 billion. Not only will the USMCA continue our country’s historic economic turnaround, but it will also give the Trump Administration negotiating power in trade talks with China and other countries.”
It wasn’t all candy canes and gumdrops for the state’s junior senator, however;
“The American people should be outraged that U.S. House Democrats have held this bipartisan deal hostage while they aimlessly pursued their illegitimate impeachment trial. It should not have taken more than a year to get to this point, but finally, Congress and the Trump Administration will have the opportunity to deliver this huge win for the entire country.”
