American congressmen This Wednesday they presented a bill that facilitates investment and accession of Latin American countries to the Agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada (T-MEC) to counteract the influence of China and reduce migration.
The United States Congress estimates that Washington does not pay enough attention to Latin Americaa criticism shared by many Latin American leaders who have ended up doing business with China, increasingly influential in the region and an unavoidable business partner.
The project of law tries to remedy it through investment and creating a commercial supply chain that would generate employment throughout the region to, in the process, address the causes of migration, one of the main problems for the Democratic president Joe Biden facing the presidential elections in November.
If adopted, “it will allow North American companies that are currently in China to return to the United States and the rest of the hemisphere,” states Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar in a video uploaded to the social network X.
USA: what does the project that seeks to extend the T-MEC Agreement to South America consist of?
The text promoted by Salazar would benefit both Central and South Americasays its author of the project bipartisan, who received the support of congressmen Adriano Espaillat, Mike Gallagher and the senators Michael Bennett and Bill Cassidy.
This bill would create a program of American loans relocation, that is, nearshoring and reshoring, of 60 billion dollars to relocate jobs from China to USA.
It also establishes a program of subsidies for the textile manufacturing and of devices and medical equipment in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The United States must “tackle China’s influence and bring back jobs and investment” to the region, says X Espaillat, who considers it “the most transformative legislation” in “recent history.
The bill opens the way to accession to the T-MEC for nations that meet a series of requirements.
“Any Latin American country has the right and the power to aspire” to be part of this treaty, says Salazar.
“The only thing they have to do (…) is follow the rules of the game: no corruption, yes democracy, protect human rights, follow the laws of the country, respect the courts”clarifies.
The law is self-funded “by enacting trade reciprocity and closing our ‘de minimis’ trade gap with China, which has caused so much job loss and pain,” Espaillat says.
Minimis is a scheme that exempts the import of goods with a value below a threshold that varies depending on the country from paying taxes.
Source: Ambito
