Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Amid persistent mixed messages from the White House, the scheduled review of the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) is now in its “overtime” phase of negotiations. Washington wants to reshore industrial supply chains onto US territory and strengthen rules of origin with a specific focus on Chinese content, but is facing resistance from its trading partners. Beyond the economic issues, there are also political and geopolitical disagreements, with particularly rancorous rhetoric flying across the 49th parallel. At the same time, there are also decades of deep economic interconnections, shared economic interests, and important constituencies that support USMCA. The pact could thrive, survive in a less ambitious format, stumble through another decade of negotiations, or simply end.
The Quincy Institute held a conversation with Juan Carlos Baker Pineda, CEO and founding partner of Consultores Internacionales Ansley, resident fellow with Georgetown’s Americas Institute and formerly Mexico’s Vice Minister for foreign trade; Simon Lester, nonresident fellow for the Baker Institute International Economics Program the co-founder of the outlet China Trade Monitor; and Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for New American Security and founder of Ziemba Insights, a firm specializing in geoeconomic risk analysis. Karthik Sankaran, senior research fellow, geoeconomics in the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute, moderated.
Amid persistent mixed messages from the White House, the scheduled review of the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) is now in its “overtime” phase of negotiations. Washington wants to reshore industrial supply chains onto US territory and strengthen rules of origin with a specific focus on Chinese content, but is facing resistance from its trading partners. Beyond the economic issues, there are also political and geopolitical disagreements, with particularly rancorous rhetoric flying across the 49th parallel. At the same time, there are also decades of deep economic interconnections, shared economic interests, and important constituencies that support USMCA. The pact could thrive, survive in a less ambitious format, stumble through another decade of negotiations, or simply end.
The Quincy Institute held a conversation with Juan Carlos Baker Pineda, CEO and founding partner of Consultores Internacionales Ansley, resident fellow with Georgetown’s Americas Institute and formerly Mexico’s Vice Minister for foreign trade; Simon Lester, nonresident fellow for the Baker Institute International Economics Program the co-founder of the outlet China Trade Monitor; and Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for New American Security and founder of Ziemba Insights, a firm specializing in geoeconomic risk analysis. Karthik Sankaran, senior research fellow, geoeconomics in the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute, moderated.
