Some Things Matter

It’s now or never for NAFTA 2.0—with the likelihood of “never” increasing by the hour—according to the chairman of the Congressional subcommittee where Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau’s fetal, possibly futile United States Mexico Canada Agreement lies gasping in its croup tent—de-oxygenated by impeachment, contempt, infrastructure, Iran, immigration, prescription-drug prices, pre-existing medical conditions, and the duplicitous, backsliding Chinese.

“If it bleeds into next year, it’s dead,” the committee’s chairman gloomily was forecasting earlier this week. Such was the assessment of Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a 12-term Democrat from the Rose City of Portland, Ore., where many voters, like the scented blossoms, are pink. As the chairman of the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Trade, Mr. Blumenauer is prepared to pound his gavel whenever Speaker Nancy Pelosi decides to place the new agreement on the agenda, which could be this month, or next year, or whenever she feels like flipping a bone to the president while confronting the farthest-left fringe of her caucus, to whom NAFTA stands for Never Approve F—ing Trump’s Agenda.

At her weekly press briefing on Thursday, Speaker Pelosi enumerated drug prices, maternal mortality and disaster assistance among her most urgent priorities, in addition to her tantalizingly slow-walking of Trump’s impeachment, pretending that “it has nothing to do with politics—it has to do with e pluribus unum,” and reminding reporters that “the Nixon experience was months before even the Republicans had to go to the president and say, ‘It’s over.’” So New NAFTA is not exactly at the zenith of her to-do list.

Rep. Blumenauer, who already has signed on as a supporter of Articles of Impeachment against the president, continued to hope for some sort of movement by the end of June. “Getting into the summer will be problematic,” he shrugged, “and I think that if it leads off into 2020 then it leads into the next Congress and the next administration”—and slow-walking his frustration in trying to alibi the hold-up to the other governments enmeshed in the tripartite pact.

“Talking to the Canadians, I have no good answers,” Blumenauer told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday. “I’m really just apologizing to them. It’s really puzzling.”

[…]

See Also:

(1) The Real Democratic Agenda

(2) Trump overhauls crucial U.S. appeals courts at record pace: ‘It’s a generational change’

(3) The Injustice of the Left’s Fury Against Barr

(4) Democrats showing contempt by holding William Barr in contempt

(5) Judicial Watch: Top Hillary Clinton Aide Admits Under Oath that He and Clinton Used Unsecure Personal Email for Official State Department Business

(6) Bernie Sanders Campaign Staff Ratify Union Contract: Health Insurance, Salary Cap

(7) Trump halts outrageous looting of Medicaid payments to skim money for unions

(8) The Economy Is Doing Well. That May Lead Trump to Escalate His Trade Fight With China Even More