OTTAWA, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- An updated free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico will support North America's economic prosperity and global competitiveness, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has said.
The amended Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) was signed by Freeland, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Mexico's Undersecretary for North America Jesus Seade in Mexico City on Tuesday.
"These amendments will ensure that rules-based trade between our three countries will continue to support the economic prosperity of all of our people and the global competitiveness of North America as a region," Freeland told a news conference after the signing.
The overhaul includes revisions that "strengthen state-to-state dispute settlement, labor protection, environmental protection, intellectual property, the automotive rules of origin, and will help to keep the most advanced medicines affordable for Canadians," Freeland said.
The new agreement replaces the original trilateral trade deal that came into effect in 1994, but the text of the amended agreement has yet to be released.
Negotiators from the three countries have spent a year working on revisions and modifications to the deal, which was reached on Nov. 30, 2018 on the margins of the G20 leaders' summit in Buenos Aires.
Much of the negotiations centered around obtaining consensus from the Democrats, who control the U.S. House of Representatives and will be involved in ratifying the pact.
But ratification could be delayed, since U.S. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that a vote would not be introduced in the congressional chamber until after President Donald Trump's impeachment trial is held in the Senate.
Some of the updates to the deal include a change to state-to-state dispute settlement, in which a panel will be established to resolve disagreements, ending the ability of one country to block the formation of such an arbitration body.
The chapter on intellectual property was revised to allow each country to determine the length of time given to pharmaceutical companies for exclusivity over new biologic drug data before cheaper generic alternatives can be developed.
The three countries also agreed to recognize their commitments to the international environmental agreements they have entered into and implement those obligations in cross-border trade.
According to Freeland's office, CUSMA will apply to a trading bloc that includes 490 million people, and aims to bolster trilateral merchandise trade that reached nearly 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars last year.
