Updated at 3:23 p.m.: Revised to include the vote result.
WASHINGTON – The House on Thursday voted 385-41 to approve a revamped trade pact between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, bringing President Donald Trump a step closer to achieving victory on a high-profile campaign pledge.
Every Texas lawmaker, both Democrat and Republican, supported the rewrite of the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.
The overwhelming bipartisan result reflected the essential role that international trade plays in the Texas economy, as well as how Trump’s protectionist views have caused the GOP to embrace an approach to cross-border commerce that jibes with many Democratic tenets.
“There was one person who led the charge, and that’s President Trump,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Lubbock Republican who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. “This is great for American workers, great for American manufacturers and farmers.”
The collegiality on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement was all the more remarkable given that the Democrat-run House the day before voted along nearly strict party lines to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Democrats were eager to prove that impeachment is not stopping other work from getting done. Republicans wanted to deliver Trump a key accomplishment ahead of the 2020 election.
The shared enthusiasm, even if motivated by different goals, came only after the Trump administration made several concessions to Democrats and their labor union allies, covering everything from worker’s rights to the environment to the pharmaceutical industry.
While some Republicans have grumbled about those changes, Trump has otherwise rallied his party around a pact he’s called the “best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA.”
Even accounting for a number of key provisions, including a long-overdue update to deal with e-commerce, economists and other trade experts have said the accord stands out most for preserving the existing bonds that have helped create an integrated North American economy.
“It’s a much better agreement,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat who was heavily involved in the negotiations over a deal he said would be good “for the state of Texas and for our country as a whole.” But “95% of it, it’s still NAFTA.”
The GOP-run Senate is expected to take up and pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in the coming weeks, concluding a wild ride for one component of Trump’s helter-skelter trade strategy that has roiled global markets with lingering tariff wars.
From the start, the Lone Star State has had much at stake.
Texas conducts more international trade than any other state in the U.S., according to data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Mexico and Canada are the state’s top trading partners, accounting for nearly $220 billion in trade through the first 10 months of this year.
Entire industries have cropped up in Texas to handle that activity, covering everything from tomatoes to Toyota trucks to top-end technology.
So it induced no small amount of concern from Texas business and political leaders when Trump at various points – both on the campaign trail and in the White House – threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NAFTA or severely cripple what he’s called the “worst trade deal ever made.”
Trump ultimately backed down from those more drastic steps, setting the stage for the U.S., Mexico, and Canada to last year reach an initial agreement on a NAFTA revamp.
Among the most notable parts seek to bring back jobs to the U.S. and boost the wages of U.S. workers, particularly in the auto sector. That would be achieved by encouraging more auto manufacturing to occur in North America and by improving labor rights for Mexican workers.
The end result will be continued economic growth, said Rep. Kevin Brady, a Republican from The Woodlands.
“USMCA will not be a Republican win or a Democratic win, but a win for the American people and a stronger, more prosperous alliance with our North American trading partners,” said Brady, who is the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.
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The accord’s protectionist focus aligned with the America-first platform that Trump used to win significant support in traditional Midwest manufacturing hubs. But it also added new trade barriers in some key areas, departing from the GOP’s longstanding gospel on free trade.
That provided an opening for Democrats, some of whom felt that Trump and his trade ambassador, Robert Lighthizer, gave them a chance to get a better deal on a new NAFTA than they could’ve secured even under President Barack Obama.
“Ambassador Lighthizer began at a spot that was much closer to some of the Democratic priorities than even President Obama’s ambassador,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, an Austin Democrat who’s a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
House Democrats negotiated with the Trump administration for months, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week announcing a deal that was endorsed by the AFL-CIO.
The compromise moved the accord even further in the Democrats’ direction. It made it easier to enforce the labor standards outlined for Mexico. It bolstered environmental protections. It eliminated a provision that Democrats had criticized as a hand-out to Big Pharma.
Doggett, for one, said he wouldn’t have voted for the deal without those changes.
“There are some really major differences between what we are approving and what President Trump originally proposed,” he said, before alluding again to Lighthizer. “He deserves some credit for trying to develop an agreement that would have appeal to both sides.”
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The shift produced some sound but little outright fury from conservatives.
Some griped that the GOP would’ve never accepted such a trade deal from a Democratic president. One senator, Pat Toomey of Pennylvania, has already vowed to oppose the accord. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, while still likely backing the pact, shared reservations about the tweaks.
But many Republicans embraced the deal without hesitation, particularly since groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce gave their blessing. Some conservatives also rejected the notion that Pelosi and the Democrats somehow pulled a fast one.
“This trade deal was negotiated by President Trump,” said Rep. Bill Flores, R-Bryan. “It’s 99% President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer. Pelosi can try to take credit for it. But she’s the one who sat on it for over a year because she didn’t want to give the president a victory.”
Republicans also pointed out that the new accord does indeed achieve longstanding GOP goals, such as improving dairy farmer’s access to the Canadian market.
“President Trump focused on securing the wins American farmers were counting on,” said Midland Rep. Mike Conaway, the top Republican on the House Agriculture Committee.
The long-term ramifications of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement remain to be seen.
The White House has predicted that the pact will produce tens of thousands of new jobs in the U.S. But independent economic analyses are projecting only modest growth, with the benefit of renewed economic certainty competing with the possibility of higher commodity costs.
The immediate effects are much clearer.
Trump will have a valuable achievement to tout on the 2020 campaign trail – and perhaps a blueprint for how to move forward in other global trade battles. And it’s not only the president who will likely pitch USMCA to voters in Texas and beyond.
Dallas Rep. Colin Allred is a freshman Democrat who’s a top target for Republicans in next year’s election. He hailed the trade deal as a “job-creating agreement” that will “shift the trade paradigm and create a new standard for trade.”
“For Texans, trade with Mexico and Canada isn’t just a textbook exercise or abstract policy issue,” he said. “It is real jobs for more than 36,000 Texans in my district.”
Houston Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, another vulnerable freshman Democrat, said the agreement was “critical for our energy future, codifying a new zero-tariff policy and further encouraging U.S. energy exports across North America for years to come.”
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