Customs Law

Yesterday, a bipartisan group from the House Committee on Ways & Means and the Senate Finance Committee announced the introduction of H.R. 3830 , the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act of 2014 to set negotiating objectives for trade agreement talks. Here is a link to the statement from Ways and Means . I usually do not get all breathless about legislation that has just been introduced. There will be lots of tea leaf reading happening as people discuss whether and how this might get passed. Regardless of the inside-the-beltway analysis, this is an important step. There are two major trade agreements in the works. Neither the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership nor the Transpacific Partnership will go anywhere unless the President has a delegation of authority to negotiate.

Here is an interesting fact. Canada and Mexico have now joined the negotiations aimed at creating a Trans-Pacific Partnership. That makes some sense. Both countries, like the United States, have pacific coasts and both countries do a lot of business in the Asia-Pacific region. The other countries currently involved in the negotiations include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Many breathless commentators have described TPP as the NAFTA of the Pacific or NAFTA on Steroids. My question is fairly basic: Assuming there is a TPP Agreement at some point in the future, what happens to NAFTA? You probably remember that when NAFTA expanded free trade in North America to include Mexico, the pre-existing U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement was put on hold and kept alive only to be resurrected in the unlikely circumstance of NAFTA collapsing. Will the same thing happen with TPP? Will it completely supersede the NAF...