The only thing holding up the USMCA trade agreement is Nancy Pelosi’s ego

The USMCA is a good deal. It’s far from perfect, but compared to NAAFTA, it’s a vast improvement that encourages free trade and would boost all three major North American economies greatly. It’s a win-win-win. The Democrats know it. That’s why it hasn’t been passed yet in the House of Representatives. Doing so would be an acknowledgement that the Trump administration’s negotiation of the deal was beneficial to Americans. The last thing Democrats want is to give President Trump a victory, especially when it comes to foreign affairs.

Therefore, we have impeachment. That’s all we have coming out of the House of Representatives right now. It’s the only major “action” taken by the House since Democrats took control. That’s why a full year after President Trump signed the historic agreement, it’s still sitting on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s desk accumulating bipartisan support. It could have passed months ago even with some Democrats objecting. But the longer it sits on her desk, the more that pressure mounts for Democrats in Congress to acknowledge they will vote for it once given the chance.

Will they be given the chance this year? That remains to be seen. It’s hard to imagine Democrats will sit on it all the way through election day next year, but if they’re going to pass it before then, it would seem to behoove them to get it in and out of the news cycle sooner rather than later. That being the case, what’s the holdup? The answer is annoyingly simple. Pelosi’s ego is getting in the way.

Today marks 365 days since @RealDonaldTrump signed the USMCA trade agreement. But House Democrats have been stalling it for months. #ImpeachmentEffect

USMCA:
✅176K new jobs
✅$68.2B economic boost
✅Increased wages

This is a win for America. Let's get it done. pic.twitter.com/ahBElcO7eL

— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) November 30, 2019

She has no illusion that it won’t pass. At this stage, all she’s trying to do is put her stamp on it, pushing for meaningless tweaks and politically expedient environmental and labor considerations to appease the climate change lobby and the AFL-CIO. Big labor is holding it up while claiming they aren’t. In a Tweet just over a week ago, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka claimed he wasn’t playing Pelosi like a fiddle in response to President Trump’s claims that he was.

.@realdonaldtrump missed the mark on Fox News this a.m. The notion that anybody could play @speakerpelosi like a fiddle is laughable. She wants the same thing we do: an enforceable agreement that actually works for workers. pic.twitter.com/YjUYetGiTd

— Richard Trumka (@RichardTrumka) November 22, 2019

As the trade agreement currently sits, it’s exponentially more enforceable than NAAFTA. Why? Because there was very little that was truly enforceable in NAAFTA thanks to loopholes in how disagreements were arbitrated. That was one of the biggest complaints against the agreement. They made a deal that had very few options for recourse when disputes arose. This was by design and the USMCA closes those loopholes. What more do they want? It’s nothing tangible, really. They just want their input on the record so they can tell their members they’re fighting for them while quietly reminding their Democratic lawmaker puppets they’re the ones who are pulling the strings.

What makes all of this so ironic is that this is a win for big labor by default. It wasn’t intended to be so, but free trade agreements like these create more jobs, swelling the ranks of labor unions and increasing their incoming dues. There is actually very little about the deal the labor unions can complain about, but they need symbolic input to help them maintain power among their members as well as in DC.

But even as she bows to Big Labor and climate change alarmists, these are only cover Pelosi is using to appease her true master: her ego. She is trying to put her name as big as possible through unnecessary changes so she can claim it’s not as much of a victory for President Trump as it really will be. From a political perspective, it’s a poor move. She’s prolonging its existence in the news cycle, and unless she’s going to hold it until late next year, she’s also prolonging the valid complaints made by Republicans against her obstruction.

Passing the USMCA is going to hurt Democrats because it will help the country. There’s no question about that. The only question that remains are the political machinations of the Speaker of the House and the prominence of her enormous ego.

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