The “incredible” U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) was “the most important trade deal we’ve ever made by far,” President Donald Trump said of his greatest first-term trade achievement.
Based on the USMCA outcomes Trump promised, today, the United States should have more balanced trade with its North American partners, more manufacturing employment, and improved outcomes for U.S. poultry and dairy farmers. USMCA has not delivered on most of those goals. The U.S. trade deficit with USMCA partners is notably larger, and offshoring to Mexico continued. Instead of the promised boom, U.S. auto sector employment at the end of 2025 was slightly lower than before USMCA. U.S. manufacturing employment was down overall. The U.S. trade deficit in agriculture and food with Mexico and Canada increased under USMCA, but the deal did deliver increased export volumes that Trump promised for several U.S. agricultural sectors.
While the USMCA improved on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in important ways, it fell far short of the necessary structural reforms: Key offshoring incentives were not remedied, including widescale wage suppression in Mexico. As well, despite USMCA’s tighter rules of origin, non-member nations’ companies have continued to gain duty-free access into the U.S. market using USMCA. This report provides the first detailed documentation of trade flows and labor outcomes of the deal, which shows USMCA not only failed to meet most of the goals and outcomes that Trump promised Americans when he launched it in 2020, but that the opposite outcomes often resulted.
A July 1, 2026, deadline looms for the signatory countries to complete a first mandatory review, which is required by one of the pact’s innovative terms: USMCA has a 16-year term and sunsets on July 1, 2036, unless the countries affirmatively agree to extend it beyond that date, including with changes they may negotiate between now and 2036. The evidence compiled in this report shows that a major USMCA renegotiation, not modest tweaks or a simple extension, is necessary for the pact to deliver the promised benefits.
Read Six Years Later: Rosy USMCA Promises Meet Reality below or download the report in full at the link above.
See the press release for the report here.