MADISON, Wis. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said Tuesday she’ll vote for President Donald Trump’s new North American free trade agreement.
Baldwin, a Democrat, said in a statement that she initially couldn’t support the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement but she got behind it after House Democrats revised it before they passed it in December. She said the revamped deal includes many changes she pushed for, including enforceable labor standards and increasing access to Mexican markets for Wisconsin dairy farmers.
The Senate could vote on the deal within the next few weeks.
Baldwin said she opposed the new pact’s predecessor agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, because it cost Wisconsin jobs.
Trump made tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement a hallmark of his presidential run in 2016 as he tried to win over working-class voters in states such as Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania
Business and farm groups had been hitting the airwaves and the halls of Congress to get lawmakers to support the pact, putting pressure on Democrats to work with the administration even as labor unions remained wary that the new deal represented much of an improvement from NAFTA.
