The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA): Legal and Business Implications

About this book:

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is a timely summary and commentary on the most important new trade agreement for the United States (U.S.). On July 1, 2020, after much expectation and delay, the new USMCA—a greatly revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994—came into effect. The USMCA is a long-awaited response to a U.S. initiative to renegotiate NAFTA. As a key regional trade agreement with vast global ramifications, familiarity with its content and rules is essential for all business, legal, policymaking, and academic parties concerned with international trade. This preeminent guide to NAFTA summarizes the contents of the third and last edition of the book providing an in-depth chapter-by-chapter analysis of the new agreement, clearly describing what has changed from the earlier agreement and what is new. 

What’s in this book:

After a concise but expertly calibrated summary of NAFTA, the author proceeds systematically through a practical analysis of each USMCA provision, emphasizing such crucial new elements as the following:

• new rules on intellectual property rights;
• stricter rules of origin within the automotive industry;
• major reforms in Mexican labor laws and their enforceability;
• opening of Canada’s agricultural and dairy sector to more U.S. competition;
• an entirely new chapter on digital trade;
• new dispute mechanisms;
• requirement of an increased minimum wage in auto plants; and
• a new chapter on environmental standards.

Changes in such important aspects of trade as textiles and apparel, ownership of hydrocarbons, cross-border trade in services, and anticorruption measures are also fully described.

How this will help you:

This concise and useful practical guide will be a welcome addition to private and corporate libraries, including corporate counsel, customs brokers, freight forwarders, logistics and import-export managers, government officials, and academics who need a thorough understanding of the new agreement. This book is among the first that will enable readers to quickly grasp the essentials of the new agreement and will definitely be a valuable addition to the trade portfolio in 2020.