Sunset Clause: The agreement contains a 16-year “Sunset” clause, i.e. the terms of the agreement expire after a certain period of time. The agreement is also subject to review every six years, during which the United States, Mexico and Canada may decide to extend the USMCA. Negotiations on the trade agreement began in 1990 under the administration of George H.W. Bush and ended in 1993 under President Bill Clinton. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. Canada ratified the agreement in March and the USMCA came into force on July 1, 2020. Although NAFTA is officially dead, governments and businesses are still adapting to the new rules, especially the new labour rules. Coronavirus can also complicate implementation as manufacturers adapt to new guidelines in the midst of a global economic crisis.

The agreement between the United States of America, the United States of Mexico and Canada[1], commonly known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), is a free trade agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States in lieu of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). [2] [3] [4] The agreement has been referred to as NAFTA 2.0[5][7][7] or “New ALEFTA[8][9],[9] since many nafta provisions have been introduced and its amendments have been found to be largely incremental. On 1 July 2020, the USMCA came into force in all Member States. The agreement is designated differently by each signatory – in the United States, it is called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA); [1] [23] in Canada, it is officially known as the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) in English[24] and the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (ACEUM) in French; [25] and in Mexico, tratado is called tratado between México, Estados Unidos y Canadé (T-MEC). [26] [27] The agreement is sometimes referred to as “New NAFTA”[28][29] with respect to the previous trilateral agreement for the successor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). On November 30, 2018, the USMCA was signed as planned by the three parties at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. [58] [59] Disputes over labour rights, steel and aluminum prevented ratification of this version of the agreement. [60] [61] Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lightizer, and Mexican Under-Secretary of State for North America Jesus Seade officially signed a revised agreement on December 10, 2019, ratified by the three countries on March 13, 2020.