The Americas Act and Its Chances of Becoming Law | Hacker News Reader

The Americas Act and Its Chances of Becoming Law

globalamericans.org

23 pointseatonphil8 comments

Most acts take years to become laws, so it's highly unlikely (and the article itself points that out - "it is unlikely that the Americas Act will get passed in the current Congress")

That said, if it did pass, it's probably going to be one of the strongest piece of legislation for consumer decoupling from China, as it basically forces nearshoring the entire textiles industry to Central and South America (Maquiladoras 2.0).

Good for Guatemala and El Salvador, bad for Vietnam and Bangladesh.

I feel like this is a "1994 called ..." skit.

In all seriousness, while admittedly not fully understanding all of the policy details, I just don't understand how this gets sold, politically, it the current environment in the US. I can't imagine the average Republican voter supporting this, and for that matter can't imagine most Democrats supporting it either.

I basically read the entire thing wondering "if the TPP was dead on arrival, why is this thing going to fare any better?" Because they're trying to sell it with almost exactly the same kind of motivations that the TPP was sold with (e.g., trying to contain China).

The only thing that hints at an answer is "well, USMCA passed, so this is totally going to fly." Which is stupid because USMCA was essentially a reissuing and rebranding of NAFTA for the temper tantrum president and passed largely because it wasn't changing all that much from NAFTA.

There's just no appetite, on either side of the aisle, for any kind of free trade pact right now, no matter how much you try to dress it up as ambitious foreign policy.

>The only thing that hints at an answer is "well, USMCA passed, so this is totally going to fly." Which is stupid because USMCA was essentially a reissuing and rebranding of NAFTA for the temper tantrum president and passed largely because it wasn't changing all that much from NAFTA.

The USMCA was a huge attack on Canada revoking a ton of benefits that we had been building for decades.

Dairy, Automotive/steel, and intellectual property/copyright were huge concessions that Canada lost.

To note, Biden's first day executive orders attacked Canada a great deal as well.

This has little to do with dem vs republican, both sides are making huge changes to Canada-USA relations.

Americas act is probably not going to be effective though, even if the USA passes it.

Republicans had better like this. This is literally the fundamental solution to the migrant situation at the southern border, economic development of the near south.

I'm guessing the GOP is more likely to support it because it's anti-business than because it'd help solve the root causes of immigration.

That's been a piece of their platform in recent years, especially after Trump got in. Here's a recap from 2022:

https://time.com/6261170/big-business-fell-out-love-with-gop...

Here's something from 2024. Arizona apparently wants to pass an anti-immigrant bill that analysts say will mostly lead to legal immigrants being incorrectly arrested, and disrupt industries such as construction, etc:

https://azmirror.com/2024/03/20/pro-immigrant-business-leade...

The opposition includes broad coalitions of Arizona business owners.

I totally agree, but, and apologies for the political interjection, it hasn't seemed to me like "rationally workable solutions" has been top-of-mind for the Republican party for the past 8 years or so.

While the considerations that this act addresses are real, strategically, the act looks so stupid, ineffective, and contrary to market forces, and the sponsors so obscure, that it is suspect.

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