President Donald Trump deserves credit for doing what previous administrations refused to do: admit that free trade isn't free when American workers are the ones paying the price. Replacing NAFTA with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement wasn't simply a political victory. It was an acknowledgment that trade agreements should strengthen North America instead of hollowing it out.
But every major agreement eventually reveals its weak spots.
As the Trump administration prepares for the next phase of USMCA, the debate shouldn't focus on whether the agreement was the right idea. It should focus on making it work the way it was intended. That conversation is no longer coming only from Washington. It is also coming from Mexico.
I recently spoke to Alejandro Martínez Araiza, National General Secretary of SNAC, one of Mexico's largest independent labor organizations in the private sector, who has spent the past several years arguing that the future of North American trade depends on making labor enforcement credible. After presenting proposals during the USMCA review process, he isn't asking for another trade deal. He is proposing a stronger one that is actually enforced. Martínez Araiza’s five recommendations for USMCA deserve attention because they approach labor through the lens of competitiveness, enforcement and continental strategy rather than ideology.
"The treaty doesn't need a tweak of commas. It needs a deep correction," he says. "A trade deal with teeth is a weapon of prosperity. A trade deal without them is a subsidy for exploitation."
His first proposal is deceptively simple: violations must carry automatic consequences.
Today, labor violations often end with negotiated settlements that drag on for months before companies return to business as usual. Martínez Araiza argues that employers have learned to treat enforcement as another cost of doing business because there is little certainty that meaningful penalties will follow. His proposal would establish an automatic escalation process that suspends USMCA trade preferences after confirmed violations, expands penalties to repeat offenders, and makes enforcement transparent instead of negotiable. Compliance should become a business decision, not a public relations exercise.
His second proposal addresses a flaw built into the current agreement.
The Rapid Response Labor Mechanism has become one of USMCA's signature enforcement tools, but its reach is limited. Entire sectors, including commerce, logistics, retail and agriculture, fall outside its jurisdiction, while the mechanism focuses on organizing rights without addressing the issue workers care about most: wages. A company can satisfy every procedural requirement under the agreement and still pay wages that leave families struggling to survive.
Martínez Araiza argues that if poverty wages remain legal, enforcement alone cannot fulfill the agreement's promise. He proposes expanding the mechanism beyond selected industries while allowing persistent wage abuse to trigger enforcement actions.
"The mechanism can deliver a union. It cannot deliver a paycheck," he says. "A worker can win every procedural right in this agreement and still not be able to feed his family. That is not compliance. That is paperwork."
His third proposal is perhaps the boldest.
Martínez Araiza wants companies receiving the benefits of USMCA to meet a regional wage floor of $7.25 per hour. Critics will immediately point out that Mexico's current minimum wage is substantially lower. His answer is that the agreement already contains wage requirements for automotive production. Under the Labor Value Content rules, a significant percentage of auto manufacturing must already be performed by workers earning at least $16 per hour. Extending a lower regional floor to other qualifying industries would not dictate Mexico's domestic wage policy. It would simply establish the conditions companies must meet if they want preferential access to North America's largest consumer market. The incentive remains voluntary: pay the tariff or pay wages that reflect the value of participating in the world's premier trade bloc.
His fourth proposal tackles a problem that governments rarely acknowledge.
Governments are often asked to investigate themselves. Martínez Araiza proposes creating a North American Labor Verification Alliance composed of accredited worker organizations from all three countries. Rather than replacing government inspectors, these organizations would provide documented evidence, continuous workplace monitoring, and independent verification when violations occur. His argument is practical. Authorities cannot monitor thousands of workplaces from government offices. Workers are already there every day. Instead of treating them only as complainants, why not recognize them as part of the enforcement capacity itself? "Governments cannot be everywhere. We already are," he says. "Stop treating workers as complainants and start treating them as capacity."
His fifth proposal looks beyond today's workplace and into tomorrow's economy.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing hiring, scheduling, productivity monitoring, and even termination decisions. Yet USMCA contains virtually no standards governing AI in the workplace. Martínez Araiza argues that this gap creates what he calls "algorithmic dumping," allowing companies to gain an unfair competitive advantage through opaque AI systems while still benefiting from North American trade preferences. His proposal combines worker-sourced compliance reporting through SNAC's AI assistant, La REBEL, with a broader framework addressing algorithmic transparency, worker privacy, AI accountability, and technological displacement.
Rather than waiting for future disputes, he argues the agreement should establish labor standards before AI becomes another loophole that undercuts workers throughout North America.
Taken individually, each proposal addresses a specific weakness inside USMCA. Taken together, they reveal something larger. This is not simply a labor agenda. It is an effort to make North America more competitive by making the agreement more credible. Automatic enforcement discourages abuse. Broader coverage closes loopholes. Regional wage standards reduce incentives to chase the cheapest labor. Independent verification builds confidence across borders. AI rules prepare the continent for the next generation of industrial competition instead of the last.
Reasonable people can debate the details of each proposal. That's healthy. What should not be debated is the need to keep improving an agreement that already represents one of America's most important strategic advantages.
China continues investing aggressively in manufacturing, technology and supply chains. North America cannot compete simply because it shares geography. It has to compete because it shares standards, trust and a common commitment to rewarding companies that play by the rules.
"There is no 'America First' with a 'Mexico Last.' Those two things cancel each other out," Martínez Araiza says. "You do not defeat China by trying to be China. You defeat it by being the neighbor China can never be."
USMCA was never meant to be a finished product. It was meant to become the foundation of a stronger North American economy. The next phase should be about making sure that foundation is strong enough to support the future.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy PJ Media's conservative reporting exposing the radical left and woke media? Support our work so we can keep bringing you the truth.
Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member