The governments of Mexico, the United States and Canada will report between them concrete and measurable results on forced labor.

The undersecretaries received updates from the Labor Council and discussed a central obligation in the USMCA – the importance of the full implementation of the prohibition of trade in goods produced with forced labor.

Likewise, the undersecretaries recognized and welcomed the opportunity for the Treaty to make the three countries leaders in the global fight against forced labor and in the creation of a truly fair and free trading system.

Throughout the discussion, Mexico, the United States, and Canada reaffirmed their commitment to collaborate on this critical issue and to fully implement their shared obligations to prohibit the importation of goods produced with forced labor.

«The Parties agreed to report concrete and measurable results of the implementation of this core obligation, at the CLC of 2022,» they said in a Joint Statement.

Forced labor

The Undersecretary of Foreign Trade of Mexico, Luz María de la Mora, the Deputy Trade Representative of the United States, Jayme White, and the Vice Minister of International Trade of Canada, David Morrison, issued the Declaration.

In May 2021, Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative, stated that the USMCA should not have free-riders.

“We have gone from seeing trade agreements exclusively as a path towards liberalization, to restructuring the rules in an effort to rebalance the impacts of the agreement; to ensure that those who benefit from the agreement are the parties to the agreement, not third party free-riders; and create accountability mechanisms for the economic actors that have benefited the most from the integration of our economies,» said Tai at the first meeting of the USMCA International Trade Commission.

International trade

In the trilateral declaration of that meeting, the countries expressed that the USMCA provides the opportunity to lead the fight against forced labor worldwide.

“Today, the United States, Mexico and Canada discussed our shared obligation to ensure the Agreement’s prohibition of the importation of goods produced through forced labor and re-committed to working closely together to promote a fair and rules-based international trading system where products made with forced labor do not enter the trading system,» they said in the document.