Washington Free Beacon
April 6, 2018
Conservative leaders delivered a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday morning that called on his administration to fix NAFTA through a proposal which would also give Congress oversight on major regulations.
The letter, signed by 24 leaders of prominent conservative organizations, backed a recent proposal from Republican senators Ted Cruz (Texas), Cory Gardner (Colo.), and Steve Daines (Mont.). The three senators are encouraging the administration to seek to add a “competitiveness” chapter to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), changing negotiators’ focus from increasing tariffs to reducing barriers to American competition.
“Rather than pursuing a defensive strategy that focuses solely on what other countries are doing to us, we need to develop a more comprehensive, offensive U.S. strategy to strengthen our economy from within, to more effectively counter the harmful trade policies of countries like China,” the senators write.
Central to the senators’ proposal is using NAFTA to indirectly implement the terms of the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act in the language of the treaty itself. If implemented, REINS would require Congressional approval of any new federal regulation that costs more than $100 million. Such regulations can currently be passed unilaterally by executive branch agencies, allowing for the basically unchecked expansion of the regulatory state.
This article was posted: Friday, April 6, 2018 at 6:52 am
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