Report Questions Trump’s Authority to Withdraw U.S. from NAFTA

The president’s authority to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from NAFTA under U.S. law is unclear, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service, but it does appear that the president would need congressional approval to terminate the U.S. law implementing NAFTA. The report’s conclusions could embolden lawmakers pushing back against President Trump’s threats to withdraw from NAFTA unless Congress approves the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement designed to replace it.

The report states that the U.S. approved NAFTA as a congressional-executive agreement by a majority vote of each house of Congress rather than as a treaty ratified by the president after Senate approval by a two-thirds majority vote. NAFTA was not a self-executing agreement; instead, Congress approved and implemented the agreement through the NAFTA Implementation Act, which provided domestic legal authorities with the power to enforce and comply with the agreement’s provisions.