Politico | 8 December 2025
What’s next for the USMCA review
By DOUG PALMER
COUNTDOWN TO USTR REPORT: The next big milestone on the way to the mandatory review of USMCA in 2026 is a report that USTR is required to send to key congressional committees by early January.
The USMCA law signed by Trump in January 2020 requires USTR to produce the report at least 180 days before top trade officials from the United States, Canada and Mexico meet on July 1 to state whether they want to renew the pact for another 16-year term.
The report deadline appears to be Friday, Jan. 2, when many people in the administration and Congress will still be in holiday mode.
That suggests the report could come early or slip further into January. However, USTR officials declined Friday and again over the weekend to confirm when it would release the report — or even whether it would be made public.
If the three countries don’t agree to renew the pact for 16 years, it would be put on a path to expire in June 2036, unless the three countries resolve outstanding concerns before then and decide to extend it.
And of course, the U.S. could “always” threaten to withdraw from the agreement despite the intricate review process the three countries negotiated during Trump’s first term, Greer said last week.
What’s required in the report: Eight years ago, USTR published its objectives for renegotiating NAFTA in an 18-page document. That eventually led to USMCA, which cleared both the House and the Senate by overwhelming bipartisan votes.
The 2020 implementing law requires USTR’s upcoming report to assess USMCA and to state whether it supports extending the agreement.
It also calls on the trade agency to detail its “precise recommendation for action to be proposed at the review” and “what, if any, prior efforts have been made to resolve any concern that underlies that recommendation or position.”
‘Clear signal’ needed: In a recent interview with POLITICO, Greer referred to the review as a chance to negotiate with both Canada and Mexico over the future terms of the pact. However, there is still confusion in the business community about how the process will unfold and how big any changes to the agreement could be.
The business community thinks the review should leave the basic structure of the agreement in place and not turn into a whole-scale renegotiation, Ed Brzytwa, vice president of international trade at the Consumer Technology Association, said Friday on the last day of the USTR hearings.
If the administration wants the business community’s advice on bigger changes it could make to the pact, “it would take a clear signal from the government that the market is open for that,” Bryztwa added.
Leaders meet: Trump met privately with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum for approximately 45 minutes on Friday, when both leaders were in town for the World Cup final draw ceremony. Although it seems likely trade was discussed, the White House did not provide a detailed readout of the conversation.
Friday recap: Last week’s hearing provided a glimpse into the range of issues that could be on the table in the review. Here’s a few tidbits from Friday’s testimony:
— Christine Bliss, president of the Coalition of Services Industries, called for Canada to repeal its Online Streaming Act, which she said could cost large U.S. streaming providers up to $7 billion annually while imposing “intrusive” rules that conflict with Canada’s obligations under USMCA.
— Jonathan McHale, vice president for digital trade at the Computer and Communications Industry Association, welcomed Canada’s decision to rescind its digital services tax but urged the Trump administration to push for a “permanent ban” on such measures.
— Tech groups generally called on the administration to expand and strengthen the digital trade provisions of the agreement, clashing with civil society groups such as Public Citizen, which wants the current provisions to be scaled back.
— Daniel Blazer, co-founder of World Direct Shipping, asked for a “no carbon pricing clause” that bars Mexico from imposing the International Maritime Organization’s global carbon tax or any equivalent scheme on American-owned shipping lines.
— Eric Gottwald, trade policy specialist for the AFL-CIO, said Mexico is “failing badly” to implement its labor commitments under the pact and called for the negotiation of a plan to bring Mexico into compliance, as well as for provisions to prevent low-priced Chinese goods from entering the U.S. through Mexico.
— Vanessa Sciarra, vice president for trade and international competitiveness at the American Clean Power Association, pressed for action on Mexico’s barriers to investment in the clean energy sector and called on the Trump administration to exclude certain “critical” energy components from Section 232 tariffs.
— Morgan Bell, public policy director for the National Fisheries Institute, stressed the importance of maintaining duty-free trade for seafood products within USMCA.
— Cuban human rights advocacy groups requested the U.S. to raise concerns about the abuse and forced labor of Cuban medical personnel in Mexico.