LatinNews Daily - 17 October 2018

* US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has announced that the new North American trade agreement recently reached by Mexico, Canada, and the US will not be voted on by the US Congress until next year. In an interview with Bloomberg News, McConnell claimed that his trade advisors do not consider it possible to address the so-called US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) this year, but that “there’s no question this will be on the top of the agenda” next year. The US has reached a deal with Mexico and Canada that is to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and offers more favourable terms of trade for the US, an outcome that has been defined as an historic achievement by US President Donald Trump and welcomed by McConnell himself. However, with mid-term legislative elections being held on 6 November in the US, McConnell’s comments open the possibility for Democrats to seek to modify the agreement. Some senior Republican senators have been pushing for a vote on the USMCA before the end of the year, fearing the possibility that the mid-term election might return a Democrat-controlled house which would make approval of the agreement harder.

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