MSCI Asks Trump Administration to Modernize NAFTA Without Endangering Its Successes

MSCI, Rolling Meadows, Ill., June 12, 2017— In written testimony on NAFTA renegotiation, the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) explained how uniquely successful the pact has been for North American manufacturing and urged the Trump administration to upgrade, but not endanger, the trillion dollar-plus annual trading relationship that NAFTA has established between the United States, Canada and Mexico. The testimony was submitted to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

“NAFTA can be improved, there is no doubt,” said MSCI President and CEO M. Robert Weidner, III, “But trade with Canada and Mexico is not why U.S. steel and aluminum shipments have not recovered to their pre-Great Recession peak. The blame for that lies with global state-subsidized overcapacity and other unfair trade practices by bad actors like China. The Trump administration must be fully aware of this trade dynamic so that it can work collaboratively with Canadian and Mexican officials to improve NAFTA for the entire North American industrial metals supply chain.”