US Maritime Coalition urges for the continued exclusion of maritime matters from NAFTA

James L. Henry, president of the Transportation Institute and chairman of the U.S. Maritime Coalition, recently sent a letter to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) urging the office to not include maritime matters in the modernization of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

“Over the last 30-plus years, the maritime industry has often expressed its views to the [USTR] opposing possible coverage of maritime matters under the multilateral, regional, and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), including NAFTA,” Henry wrote in a June letter to Edward Gresser, chair of the Trade Policy Staff Committee of the USTR.

“The industry — carriers, dredgers, shipyards, and seafarers — have had a simple message: it strongly opposes the inclusion of maritime matters in trade agreements because it is detrimental to the United States’ national defense and economic interests. Recognizing these negative impacts to the United States, the USTR and every Administration worked to ensure maritime matters were not included in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), or any regional or bilateral trade agreements to which the U.S. is a party.”

The maritime industry significantly contributes to the country’s economic, national, and homeland security. There are approximately 40,000 vessels in the American domestic fleet. The domestic maritime industry supports nearly 500,000 jobs nationally, providing a gross economic output of more than $92.5 billion each year. Worker incomes from those jobs total $29 billion annually with a $10 billion tax impact.

According to Henry, the steps taken by NAFTA to comprehensively exclude maritime transportation goods and services did not restrain or limit the country’s ability to maintain and promote a strong U.S.-flag fleet and maritime industry in domestic and foreign commerce. The exclusion also gave the freedom to ensure a shipbuilding industrial base to meet national defense needs, and retain the country’s effective unilateral ability to open up foreign markets in maritime and maritime-related services.

“We do not believe that anything has changed here at home or abroad that would alter our view or change the U.S. Government’s position with respect to the inclusion of maritime matters in NAFTA or any other trade agreement,” Henry wrote. “Moreover, nothing has been presented that would indicate why or how the inclusion of maritime in a modernized NAFTA would benefit our American maritime industry and the United States’ national and economic security.”