This Week’s Round of NAFTA Talks in Mexico Promises Dangerous Regulatory Review Chapter

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The latest round of secret negotiations on a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is moving toward a conclusion today in Mexico. Inside U.S. Trade reports that negotiators from Canada, Mexico and the United States have reached agreement on a regulatory review chapter.

Bill Waren, senior trade analyst at Friends of the Earth, has released this statement:

A new regulatory review chapter in a new NAFTA deal would likely hamstring agricultural, food safety, and other environmental regulations. It would likely underestimate the benefits of improved public health, chemical and animal welfare regulations and overestimate the economic cost to multinational business giants. For example, insecticide safety standards would be lowered if the undervalued “benefit” of protecting the bees and the crops they pollinate is outweighed by the inflated “cost” to corporate profits.

Almost certainly, a new NAFTA regulatory review chapter would threaten sensible public health and environmental safeguards across the board.

Expert contact: Bill Waren, (202) 222-0746, [email protected]
Communications contact: Patrick Davis, (202) 222-0744, [email protected]