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Texas Border Business

WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) discussed the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement announced yesterday by the Trump Administration. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s floor remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“I was greatly encouraged to hear yesterday’s announcement by the Administration that the United States and Mexico and Canada have now successfully come to a trilateral agreement to modernize NAFTA.”

“This is important not only to border states like ours, this is important to the entire country. As a matter of fact, just with Mexico, about five million jobs in the United States depend on binational trade with Mexico. About eight million depend on binational trade with Canada.”

“The newly named U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will greatly benefit North American commerce, as I said, and modernize areas where our economy has evolved since the 1990s.”

“The new agreement will fix deficiencies in the original NAFTA, reduce trade barriers, and open markets for U.S. farmers and manufacturers. I’m particularly hearing a lot from my folks in the agriculture sector in Texas that they are excited with some of the negotiations on Canada with regard to agriculture.”

“Millions of American jobs are supported by trade with Mexico and Canada, and in Texas, NAFTA has been one of the cornerstones of our economy which helped cause us to create more jobs than any other state in the country in recent years. We have the second largest state economy in the U.S., so Mexico being our top import and export partner obviously has implications that are big not only to us, but truly national and international in scope.”

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“Over the course of the last quarter century since NAFTA was signed, we have reached benefits in terms of jobs, incomes, and cultural exchange. These benefits are so significant and widespread that they really can’t be fully measured. They are why arguably Texas had more at stake than our 49 counterparts throughout the NAFTA reform process.”

“This new, enhanced agreement is a positive step, and I thank Ambassador Lighthizer as well as President Trump and all of our U.S., Canadian, and Mexican officials that were involved in crafting this document, and I look forward to working with the chairman of the Finance Committee and all of our members on the Finance Committee, as well as the entire Senate, moving forward as we consider Congressional implementation of this agreement.”

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