USMCA / Emergency Response Panel

The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement members are setting up a new emergency response subcommittee to keep trade flowing during emergency situations.

The USMCA Free Trade Commission decision on North American competitiveness was unveiled yesterday.

The decision sets up a USMCA Subcommittee on Emergency Response under the agreement’s North American Competitiveness Committee to coordinate North American efforts to maintain regional trade flows during emergency situations.

It also creates a working group under the subcommittee to develop a shared understanding of what constitutes critical infrastructure priorities.

“The COVID-19 pandemic exposed serious gaps in our three countries’ responses to trade flow disruptions during emergencies, as well as our understandings of what constitutes critical infrastructure priorities,” US Trade Representative Katherine Tai commented.

“Our increasingly integrated supply chains depend on the shared maintenance of North American trade flows, especially in light of the supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s unjust and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, as well as continuing challenges posed by non-market actors,” she continued.

The decision will create important trilateral bodies to “enable timely cooperation during emergency situations and to coordinate on critical infrastructure priorities,” Ms. Tai said.