Review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on Trade

Published on August 29, 2026;

The U.S., Mexico, and Canada Agreement (USMCA) is a trilateral free trade pact that went into effect on July 1, 2020, that is built upon a foundation of neoliberal free trade ideologies, in which large corporations can use economic globalization to their advantage.

The current USMCA fails to protect workers from bad working conditions and low wages as the result of corporate anti-union campaigns. Because of the free-trade policies, corporations are permitted to move their manufacturing across borders into countries with limited workers’ protections, allowing them to take advantage of cheap labor. The products that Mexican laborers manufacture are transported into the United States, creating large profit margins for corporations and stimulating the U.S. economy while leaving Mexican laborers with low return on their labor. The laissez-faire capitalist policies within the USMCA creates a trend where U.S. companies can outsource their production to Mexico, which has a lower minimum wage and a longer workweek than the United States. Although the Mexican government under the ruling Morena party has more than doubled the minimum wage and passed a constitutional reform that is transitioning the workweek from 48 hours to 40 hours by 2030, in some cases U.S.-based transnational corporations have violated Mexican labor law, particularly protections for workers’ rights to organize a union, with impunity because of weakness in the provisions of the USMCA.

The Rapid Response Mechanism is a component of the USMCA that establishes provisions for workers’ rights, particularly their rights to form a union. If a corporation violates these rights, workers can file a complaint that would trigger an investigation by the Mexican Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare, who would then issue a report. If they report a violation of workers’ rights, they would issue a remediation plan for the corporation. If the corporation does not adhere to the remediation plan, sanctions can be placed on the corporation, such as products not being allowed to cross the United States border. The Rapid Response Mechanism is a way for laborers in Mexico to get their issues addressed swiftly, though it contains some loopholes for corporations to slip through. For example, the RRM is site-specific, so if a corporation shuts down their operations in a certain location to escape the RRM under the USMCA, putting Mexican laborers out of a job, the corporation itself cannot be punished. Further, the RRM only applies to Mexico, leaving workers in the United States and Canada wondering why the same protections do not apply to them.

The San Francisco Living Wage Coalition points out that it cannot achieve a living wage in the United States when corporations can move production across “an imaginary line in the sand” and pay workers the same amount per day that a worker at minimum wage makes in an hour in San Francisco. Since the passage of the USMCA, the SFLWC has taken various measures to draw attention to the weaknesses in the protections for workers’ rights within the USMCA. The Coalition has repeatedly attempted to schedule a meeting with representatives from the Office of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. On June 24, 2026, the coalition held a “Fair Trade, Not ‘Free’ Trade” protest outside of the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco, where the Speaker Emerita’s office is located. Although a delegation from the Living Wage Coalition, the California Trade Justice Coalition and the San Francisco chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement – AFL-CIO were not allowed to go to the Congresswoman Pelosi’s district office, a representative from her office did come to the front entrance to receive documents detailing their concerns about loop-holes in the worker protections in the USMCA. However, as the Trump administration refused to renew the pact on July 1, 2026, the SF Living Wage Coalition is turning their organizing efforts towards increasing public visibility on the issue of increasing worker protections within the USMCA leading up to the midterm elections.

by Sophie Ramirez

Action Steps

1. Sign this petition demanding stronger protections for worker’s rights in the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement.

2. Support our ongoing campaign to strengthen worker protections and demand fair trade not free trade by donating here. 

Additional Materials

1. USMCA Approaching Review: Workers’ Rights need to be strengthened