The United States Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, met virtually with the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Businesses and Economic Development of Canada, Mary Ng, with the objective of analyzing the controversy with Mexico regarding energetic.
Among the issues discussed last Tuesday, November 29, the consultations under the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC) on the energy policy promoted by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stood out, since they consider that , so far, continue their threat to US and Canadian investment.
Additionally, it transpired that on Wednesday, Ambassador Katherine Tai would hold a closed-door meeting with the Secretary of the Economy, Raquel Buenrostro.
The request to carry out T-MEC consultations began on July 20, 2022, and although there was a 75-day deadline, which should expire on October 3, Mexico’s trading partners decided to continue negotiations, before making the decision to install a dispute settlement panel.
Juan Carlos Machorro, partner in charge of the transactional practice of the firm Santamarina y Steta, stressed that, although the consultation period has entered a pause, the request to install a dispute resolution panel could arrive at any time.
“At any time, our trading partners could trigger the installation of said panel which, as we have stated on other occasions, is more than pessimistic for the interests of the government, the state and the Mexican economy,” he said.
In addition to the disputes in the energy sector, the US agricultural sector announced this week that it will be forced to use a dispute resolution panel against Mexico due to an imminent ban on imports of GM corn and other biotech products.
The Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, Tom Vilsack, visited President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in person to express his concern about the issue.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Tai and Minister Ng acknowledged the close relationship between the two countries and stressed the importance of US-Canada cooperation in strengthening North American economic integration.
In addition, Ambassador Tai expressed concern about Canada’s proposed unilateral tax on digital services and pending legislation in the Canadian Parliament that could affect digital streaming services and online news sharing and discriminate against US companies. Both countries agreed to continue working together to address these and other issues.
Buenrostro’s inexperience in negotiating the T-MEC disputes
The Secretary of Economy, Raquel Nice face, it has a strange, to say the least, way of doing business with the United States and Canada.
In her appearance this Tuesday in the Mexican Senate, the former head of the SAT committed before the legislators an indiscretion that speaks of how little the duty of the consultations that our country holds with its North American trade partners dominates.
What is treated and discussed in these consultations is private and should not be aired. They are very delicate negotiations and part of the success in resolving them is not making public what the parties propose. Also, anything you reveal can be used against you.
What did Buenrostro do? He told the senators that the United States and Canada sent a list of questions, that Mexico answered them, that the counterpart analyzed the answers and that after that there was a second round of questions, which was answered again, but that “with that second round of responses the United States and Canada decided that it was not satisfactory.
That statement would imply two errors. The disclosure of private negotiations, and second: the head of the consultations officially declares that Mexico would have given incomplete information to its partners. As her Secretary of Economy, Buenrostro is in charge of coordinating a defense of the Mexican State in arbitrations involving investments.
With his words last Tuesday, whoever has to act abroad as a lawyer for national interests has set a bad precedent: if our partners claimed that they received incomplete information on two occasions, they would have his statement as proof.
These statements by Buenrostro come five days after the first virtual meeting between the new Economy official and Ambassador Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative.
It is worth mentioning that in the last days of October, and when the virtual interview between the two was already announced, Joe Biden’s collaborator warned that Washington is not ruling out requesting the formation of the panel to resolve the US claim for breaches of the T-MEC.
Remittance shipments to Mexico reach a record of almost 5.4 billion dollars in October
Remittances to Mexico reached a record of 5.360 million dollars during October, an increase of 11.2% compared to the same month last year, data from the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) showed this Thursday.
The amount exceeds the record of 5.297 million dollars in remittances sent in July. The median amount shipped in October was $385. In accumulated data through October so far this year, remittances increased 14.6% year-on-year to $48.338 million, the Mexican central bank said.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said that he estimates that the remittances reach 60,000 million dollars by the end of the year. What a shame that the government celebrates its inability to provide development and job opportunities to the millions of Mexicans who are undocumented today!
