Industry News
U.S. to Study Bringing U.K. Into NAFTA
TweetMarch 2000
At the request of the Senate Finance Committee, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is conducting a 332 investigation entitled The Impact on the U.S. Economy of Including the United Kingdom in a Free Trade Arrangement with The United States, Canada, and Mexico (Inv. 332-409). ITC will hold a public hearing in connection with this investigation on April 11, 2000. Requests to appear at the hearing are due March 28th, and prehearing briefs are due April 4th. Post-hearing briefs and written statements are due May 5th.
It is interesting that the letter ITC received from Senate Finance asked them to use the United Kingdom (instead of, for instance, Chile) as an example of what would happen if the NAFTA were expanded to include an additional country. It's possible that the United Kingdom was selected because of heightened interest in an FTA between the NAFTA and EU countries in the wake of the recently signed EU-Mexico Free Trade Agreement. (see text of Agreement at http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/bilateral/mexico/fta.htm). Proponents of an FTA between the NAFTA and EU countries have, thus far, been working toward these ends primarily through the Transatlantic Business Dialogue.
We note that under the current EU rules the United Kingdom would not be permitted to unilaterally reduce its external tariffs. Thus, in order to join an FTA, either: 1) the Treaty of Rome (establishing the EU as a customs union) would have to be changed, 2) all EU countries would also have to join the NAFTA, or 3) the UK would have to withdraw from the EU. A source at the ITC explained to us that ITC would conduct this study based on 2 different sets of assumptions regarding how the United Kingdom might be included in such a free trade arrangement. He said that, while ITC would not be publishing its assumptions prior to the deadline for filing comments, the public is welcome to ask the ITC about its assumptions at the hearing.
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