There’s often not much agreement on news out of Washington, but Arizona business leaders were hard-pressed this week to come up with negatives about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that took effect July 1.
The deal, which has been several years in the making, replaces the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement that created the three-country trading zone that economists say has been worth billions in trade and thousands of jobs in Arizona alone.
“USMCA cements this trilateral alliance – it’s really historic,” said Julie Pastrick, president and CEO of the Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Arizona-Mexico Commission board.
And NAFTA was good for Arizona: A Business Roundtable fact sheet on the USMCA claims that trade with Canada and Mexico supported 228,300 Arizona jobs in 2017.
