The people of the Second Congressional District should be thanking Congressman Jared Golden for his conviction to obtain a fair trade policy for Maine and the country. Although some improvements were made to NAFTA, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is still 95% the same agreement that failed America and especially the people of Maine. The new trade deal will not address the pressures of Canadian lobster, softwood lumber or pellet dumping that kill Maine jobs.

Congressman Golden agrees that NAFTA was a broken promise to U.S. workers and created the loss of 30,000 manufacturing jobs in Maine from 1994-2015. While the USMCA, signed last week, contains some improvements over the deal Trump brought to Congress a few months ago, jobs will still be outsourced to Mexico with no incentive to bring back jobs that were lost.

USMCA issues that concern workers of Maine: The U.S. economy will not see benefits for six years; it continues to incentivize outsourcing of American jobs; the labor provisions it contains are unenforceable and will allow a continuation of the system that keeps Mexican wages low, reducing the standard of living for all three countries.

USMCA was negotiated to help big tech, big ag and huge corporations, falling far short of its intended outcome, which is to stop American jobs from being shipped to Mexico and overseas.

People should be grateful to have Congressman Golden fighting for the working people of Maine while standing firm on the need for trade provisions designed to protect jobs and raise wages.

Linda Deane, Livermore Falls

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