IV 

115TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 132 

Calling on the President to initiate renegotiation of the North American 

Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and further calling on the President 

to consider withdrawing the United States from NAFTA if the renegotiations are not satisfactorily completed within one year. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FEBRUARY 16, 2017 

Mr. DEFAZIO (for himself, Mr. BISHOP of Georgia, Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania, Mr. CICILLINE, Ms. DELAURO, Mrs. DINGELL, Mr. ELLISON, Mr. 

GENE GREEN of Texas, Ms. KAPTUR, Mr. LIPINSKI, Mr. NOLAN, Mr. 

POCAN, Mr. RYAN of Ohio, Mr. SCOTT of Virginia, and Ms. SLAUGHTER) 

submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 

on Ways and Means 

RESOLUTION 

Calling on the President to initiate renegotiation of the North 

American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and further 

calling on the President to consider withdrawing the 

United States from NAFTA if the renegotiations are 

not satisfactorily completed within one year. 

Whereas it was predicted that the North American Free 

Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would create a trade surplus 

for the United States of between $9,000,000,000 to 

$12,000,000,000 and create 170,000 jobs per year in its 

first 5 years, but instead NAFTA has resulted in more 


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than two decades of growing trade deficits with Mexico 

and Canada and massive manufacturing job losses; 

Whereas according to the Economic Policy Institute, by 2013 

the NAFTA trade deficit had already equated to an estimated net loss of roughly 850,000 United States jobs; 

Whereas in 2016 the United States trade deficit with other 

NAFTA countries was $172,995,603; 

Whereas more than 865,000 United States workers have been 

certified by the United States Government through the 

Trade Adjustment Assistance Program as having lost 

their jobs to offshoring and trade with other NAFTA 

countries; 

Whereas the nearly 65 percent of American workers that do 

not have college degrees have been hardest hit by 

NAFTA job losses and wage cuts, negatively impacting 

entire communities; 

Whereas according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 

two out of every five displaced manufacturing workers 

who were rehired in 2016 experienced a wage reduction 

and one out of every four displaced manufacturing workers took a pay cut of greater than 20 percent, meaning 

the average manufacturing worker earning more than 

$38,000 per year suffered an annual wage loss of at least 

$7,700; 

Whereas, as manufacturing workers have lost their jobs to 

NAFTA, they have joined the glut of United States 

workers seeking service sector jobs so that wages in these 

sectors have also been pushed downwards and income inequality has been exacerbated; 

Whereas NAFTA has benefited large agribusiness corporations over family farmers in all three nations, failing to 


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address the very real problems of price volatility for producers and consumers alike, while damaging livelihoods 

in rural communities at home and abroad; 

Whereas by failing to condition trade benefits on countries 

enforcing strong labor and environmental standards, 

NAFTA incentivized corporations’ offshoring of jobs and 

exploiting of workers across North America in a race to 

the bottom, and firms that remained in the United States 

faced unfair competition from imports subsidized through 

social dumping; 

Whereas NAFTA’s labor and environmental terms were included in unenforceable side agreements, but even more 

recent agreements’ labor and environmental terms included in core texts have also failed to change actual 

practice because they have not been sufficiently enforced; 

Whereas NAFTA was also the first United States trade 

agreement to include special privileges for investors and 

the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process 

that make it less risky for employers to relocate jobs offshore, while simultaneously threatening democratic policymaking at home and abroad; 

Whereas corporations have used NAFTA’s ISDS process to 

challenge bans on toxic chemicals, the decisions of environmental review panels, court rulings that support access to affordable medicines, and protections for the climate, and corporations have extracted more than 

$370,000,000 from governments in NAFTA ISDS cases, 

while pending NAFTA claims total more than 

$50,000,000,000; 

Whereas NAFTA was negotiated in an opaque process in 

which corporations were granted undue influence while 


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the United States public was prevented from providing 

input; and 

Whereas President Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of initiating negotiations for a NAFTA replacement 

agreement within the first 100 days of taking office, and 

pledged to withdraw the United States from NAFTA if 

he could not make it ‘‘much better’’ for working people: 

Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep2 resentatives that— 

3 (1) the North American Free Trade Agreement 

4 (NAFTA) should be replaced with a new trade 

5 agreement that— 

6 (A) includes strong, binding, and enforce7 able labor and environmental standards in the 

8 agreement’s core text with requirements that 

9 are enforced; 

10 (B) creates a fair playing field by requiring 

11 that the agreement will take effect only upon 

12 each participating country adopting, maintain13 ing, implementing, and enforcing domestic laws 

14 that provide the labor rights and protections 

15 that are included in the International Labor 

16 Organization’s Core Conventions and policies 

17 that fulfill the Paris climate agreement and 

18 other core multilateral environmental agree19 ments; 


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1 (C) ensures these commitments are en2 forceable through an independent dispute settle3 ment process and subject to the same sanctions 

4 used to enforce the commercial provisions of 

5 NAFTA; 

6 (D) ensures market access is conditioned 

7 on confirmation that labor and environmental 

8 commitments are enforced, which means there 

9 is sustained evidence that conditions on the 

10 ground have improved and an assurance trade 

11 benefits will be withdrawn if conditions on the 

12 ground deteriorate; and 

13 (E) includes provisions to tax imported 

14 products that are made under highly climate15 polluting conditions; 

16 (2) such a new trade agreement— 

17 (A) should guard against employer-domi18 nated unions by requiring that each partici19 pating country have laws in place that— 

20 (i) require unions to provide members 

21 with timely access to union bylaws and to 

22 collective bargaining agreements and ten23 tative collective bargaining agreements 

24 prior to ratification votes; 


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1 (ii) require collective bargaining 

2 agreements to be ratified by a free and se3 cret ballot vote of the workers covered 

4 under the collective bargaining agreement; 

5 and 

6 (iii) require management to permit 

7 union representation in investigatory inter8 views; 

9 (B) should not include protections for for10 eign investors, including an Investor-State Dis11 pute Settlement (ISDS) process, so to avoid ex12 posure of the United States Government and 

13 taxpayers to financial losses, threats to United 

14 States and other parties’ laws and sovereignty, 

15 the undermining of environmental and health 

16 protections in extra-judicial tribunals, or new 

17 incentives to offshore jobs; 

18 (C) should not include provisions that un19 dermine Buy America, Buy Local, or any other 

20 domestic procurement preferences or labor, en21 vironmental, or other standards for procure22 ment contracts; 

23 (D) should require all imported products 

24 and services and foreign service sector compa25 nies operating in the United States to comply 


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1 with United States environmental, land use, 

2 safety, privacy, transparency, professional quali3 fication, and consumer access laws; 

4 (E) should not include any provisions simi5 lar to NAFTA’s ‘‘Chapter Nineteen: Review 

6 and Dispute Settlement in Antidumping and 

7 Countervailing Duty Matters’’ or any extra-ju8 dicial review tribunal empowered to invalidate 

9 the decisions of the United States Government 

10 or judicial courts relating to anti-dumping, sub11 sidies, or countervailing duties; 

12 (F) should include binding rules that will 

13 prevent foreign governments from using cur14 rency manipulation to undercut United States 

15 exports or subsidize their exports meaning 

16 strong, binding, and enforceable disciplines 

17 against currency manipulation that trigger 

18 automatic corrective action against currency 

19 manipulators, rather than simply triggering re20 ports or dialogue must be included in a replace21 ment trade agreements’ core text; 

22 (G) should strengthen NAFTA’s ‘‘rules of 

23 origin’’— 

24 (i) by raising the auto rule of origin 

25 to require that 90 percent of a product’s 


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1 value is legitimately sourced from a coun2 try that is party to the trade agreement 

3 for the product to qualify for benefits 

4 under the agreement; and 

5 (ii) rules to eliminate transshipment 

6 and other loopholes; 

7 (H) should include rules that require im8 ported food and products to meet United States 

9 standards for safety, inspection, and labeling 

10 requirements, including country-of-origin label11 ing requirements; 

12 (I) should not include intellectual property 

13 provisions or other provisions that drive up the 

14 cost of medicines, and should not include provi15 sions that would go beyond the existing World 

16 Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Re17 lated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights 

18 (TRIPS), which is already in effect in all 

19 NAFTA member countries; 

20 (J) should include a broad ‘‘carve-out’’ to 

21 safeguard nondiscriminatory domestic public in22 terest policies from attack under any of the 

23 agreement’s rules; 

24 (K) should not require access to United 

25 States roads for commercial vehicles domiciled 


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1 in other countries and should require all foreign 

2 service providers’ vehicles and drivers entering 

3 the United States to meet all United States 

4 highway safety and environmental standards be5 fore being granted access to and use of United 

6 States distribution and transportation systems; 

7 and 

8 (L) should safeguard each country’s energy 

9 independence and autonomy over environmental 

10 policy by excluding terms such as those con11 tained in NAFTA’s energy chapter, which re12 quire countries to maintain proportionate 

13 shares of energy exports even at times of do14 mestic shortage or planned production reduc15 tion while enabling challenges to widely used 

16 climate policies; 

17 (3) negotiations for such a new trade agreement 

18 should take place in a transparent, participatory, 

19 and democratic manner, ensuring adequate congres20 sional and stakeholder input throughout the process; 

21 (4) the President should initiate renegotiation 

22 of NAFTA not later than June 1, 2017; 

23 (5) the President should ensure each and every 

24 one of the provisions described in paragraphs (1) 

25 and (2) is included in the core text of such a new 


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1 trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that is to 

2 replace NAFTA before finalizing the agreement; and 

3 (6) if each and every one of the provisions de4 scribed in paragraphs (1) and (2) is not included in 

5 the core text of such a new trade agreement with 

6 Canada and Mexico that is to replace NAFTA with7 in one year of the beginning of renegotiation of 

8 NAFTA, the President should consider withdrawing 

9 the United States from NAFTA as provided for in 

10 Article 2205 of NAFTA. 

Æ 


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