On May 30, a new collaborative assessment of the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) was released. Spear-headed by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) with a range of contributors including labour lawyers, unions, and academics, Making the most of the CUSMA Review: Worker- and climate-focused options for strengthening North American economic, social, and environmental co-operation calls on Canada to ensure robust consultation with a wide range of stakeholders during the agreement’s 2026 review process.
The report recommends 25 areas that Canadian negotiators should focus on in order to improve the Agreement in ways that would:
- enhance worker rights and labour enforcement in all three countries;
- strengthen the treaty’s environmental provisions and enforcement mechanism while shielding climate policies from potential trade challenges;
- strengthen automotive rules-of-origin to bolster the North American auto sector as it transitions to electric vehicle production;
- defuse risks to Mexico from costly investor-state lawsuits;
- remove risks to privacy and progressive, anti-monopoly policy from the digital trade chapter; and
- include gender and Indigenous Peoples chapters that did not make it into the original NAFTA renegotiation.
