Mexican Energy Trade Enforcement Act
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Rep. Arrington, Jodey C. [R-TX-19]
ID: A000375
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Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed members of Congress. Let's dissect this farce, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The Mexican Energy Trade Enforcement Act (HR 5926) is a thinly veiled attempt to strong-arm Mexico into complying with certain obligations under the USMCA. The bill's sponsors claim it's about protecting American commerce abroad and promoting fair trade practices. How quaint.
In reality, this bill is a desperate attempt to placate the energy lobby, which has been whining about Mexico's favoritism towards its state-owned electrical utility and petroleum companies. It's a classic case of "we can't compete on a level playing field, so let's use the government to tilt the scales in our favor."
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill requires the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to either request a dispute resolution panel with Mexico under the USMCA or initiate an investigation under the Trade Act of 1974. Oh, and they have to submit a report to Congress within 90 days detailing their actions. Wow, I bet the USTR is just shaking in their boots.
The bill also defines "covered actions" as those taken by Mexico that favor its state-owned companies and negatively impact American energy companies operating in Mexico. How convenient that this definition just so happens to align with the interests of the energy lobby.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are involved here:
* The energy lobby, which is salivating at the prospect of getting a leg up on their Mexican competitors. * American energy companies operating in Mexico, who will no doubt use this bill as an excuse to cry foul and demand more government handouts. * The USTR, which will have to pretend to take action while actually doing nothing to rock the boat. * Mexico, which will likely respond with a mix of outrage and indifference.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a joke. It's a toothless attempt to bully Mexico into compliance, and it will likely achieve nothing except to further strain relations between the two countries.
In reality, this bill is just another example of Congress's addiction to symbolic legislation. They know it won't actually accomplish anything, but it makes for great campaign fodder and allows them to pretend they're doing something about "unfair trade practices."
The real impact will be on American taxpayers, who will foot the bill for this legislative posturing. And, of course, the energy lobby will continue to reap the benefits of their cozy relationship with Congress.
In conclusion, HR 5926 is a pathetic attempt at legislating. It's a symptom of a deeper disease: the corruption and cronyism that infests our government. But hey, at least it makes for good theater.
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Rep. Arrington, Jodey C. [R-TX-19]
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
â 802 â Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise response to four rounds of tariffs plus an attempted Phase One agreement. The Biden Administration has left the tariffs in place and is expanding them to pursue progressive policy goals. The first order of business for a new Administration that is focused on American workers and consumers is to repeal all tariffs enacted under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 196251 and Sections 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.52 The President can do this unilaterally, and Congress can do it through legislation. The second order of business requires Congress to pass legislation repealing Sections 232, 201, and 301. The U.S. Constitution places all taxing authority with Congress53 and none with the President. Congress used those provisions of law to delegate some of its taxing authority to the President because it was having trouble passing âcleanâ tariff legislation in the 1960s and 1970s. Unless and until this constitutional question about delegation is addressed, important reforms are available to the next Congress and the next President. Congress faced a problem of collective action in the 1960s and 1970s. As a whole, Members generally wanted to lower tariffs, but few individual Members were will- ing to remove tariffs that benefited special interests in their districts. Trade bills were invariably watered down through amendments and logrolling. The thinking was that the President, whose constituency is the entire nation, would be less prone to special-interest pleading than Members of Congress would be, so Congress del- egated some of its tariff-making authority to the President in 1962 and 1974 trade legislation. Delegating tariff-making might have worked in the short run, but in the long run, it was both constitutionally dubious and ripe for abuse. That came to pass in 2018. The Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, invoked in 2018 against Canada, Europe, and other allies on national security grounds, raised car prices by an aver- age of $250 per vehicle and gave America the worldâs highest steel prices. They also harmed the construction, canned food and beverage, and other metal-us- ing industries. While this may have benefited the steel industry itself, each steel job saved cost an average of $650,000 per year that had been taken from elsewhere in the econo- my.54 That is no way to strengthen American manufacturing. The New York Federal Reserve estimated in 2019 that the Section 301 China tariffs cost the average house- hold $831 per year,55 a figure that has likely increased with inflation. The new tariffs have a clear record of failureâas conservative economists almost unanimously warned would be the case. Job number one for the next Administration is to return to sensible trade policies and eliminate the destruc- tive TrumpâBiden tariffs. Strengthening American Manufacturing. The decline of American manu- facturing is a common political trope in both parties, typically invoked before a call for more government intervention. This narrative has several problems. One is that â 803 â Trade American manufacturing output is currently at an all-time high. The record was not set during World War II and not during the 1950s boom. Output did not peak when manufacturing employment peaked in 1979 or during the Reagan economic revival in the 1980s. It is actually higher now than it has ever been. American manufacturing is buoyant because each manufacturing workerâs pro- ductivity is also at an all-time high. The key to prosperity is doing more with less. The next President should ignore special interests and populist ideologues who want government to do the opposite through industrial policy, trade protectionism, and other failed progressive policies. It takes surprisingly few people to achieve Americaâs record-high manufac- turing outputâcurrently about 13 million people out of a workforce of more than 160 million, compared to the 1979 peak of 19.5 million people out of a workforce of 104 million.56 Productivity growth has freed the time and talents of millions of people for other, additional uses. The belief that manufacturing has to shrink for services to grow is the zero- sum fallacy against which sensible economists often warn. It is anathema to the optimism, hope, and confidence that are the natural birthright of conservatives. Growing productivity enables more output of both manufacturing and services. That is why America continues to have sustained booms and record-setting real GDP despite the long-run decline in manufacturing employment. Economists distinguish between two types of growth: extensive and intensive. Extensive growth is the Soviet and Chinese model for manufacturing: If you have more people use more resources, they will create more output. Extensive growth is doing more with more; intensive growth is doing more with less. That is where Americaâs superpower lies. The story of American manufacturing is one of intensive growth dating back to our agricultural origins. Conservative leaders should draw on this history to position America for continued success. With intensive growth, it is not manufacturing or services; it is manufacturing and services. Retaliatory Tariffs. Raising tariffs on another country almost always invites retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. The latter tend to be directed at politically sen- sitive American exports. Retaliatory tariffs by both China and American allies in response to the 2018 steel tariffs were targeted primarily at American agriculture. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, those tariffs cost farmers $27 billion with losses concentrated particularly in heartland states.57 Retaliatory tariffs also targeted U.S. industries that were not protected by tar- iffs. Many imports become inputs into U.S. manufacturing. The motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson was already facing higher production costs as domestic steel producers raised their prices to accommodate the new steel tariff. A retaliatory tariff on its motorcycles imposed by the European Union further raised its prices and hurt its export business. Harm to such innocent bystanders was another unin- tended (though foreseen) consequence.
Introduction
â 89 â Section 2: The Common Defense The solution to this problem is strong political leadership. Skinner writes, âThe next Administration must take swift and decisive steps to reforge the department into a lean and functional diplomatic machine that serves the President and, thereby, the American people.â Because the Senate has been extraordinarily lax in fulfilling its constitutional obligation to confirm presidential appointees, she recommends putting appointees into acting roles until such time as the Senate confirms them. Skinner writes that State should also stop skirting the Constitutionâs trea- ty-making requirements and stop enforcing âagreementsâ as treaties. It should encourage more trade with allies, particularly with Great Britain, and less with adversaries. And it should implement a âsovereign Mexicoâ policy, as our neighbor âhas functionally lost its sovereignty to muscular criminal cartels that effectively run the country.â In Africa, Skinner writes, the U.S. âshould focus on core security, economic, and human rightsâ rather than impose radical abortion and pro-LGBT initiatives. Divisive symbols such as the rainbow flag or the Black Lives Matter flag have no place next to the Stars and Stripes at our embassies. When it comes to China, Skinner writes that âa policy of âcompete where we must, but cooperate where we canââŚhas demonstrably failed.â The Peopleâs Repub- lic of Chinaâs (PRC) âaggressive behavior,â she writes, âcan only be curbed through external pressure.â Efforts to protect or excuse China must stop. She observes, â[M]any were quick to dismiss even the possibility that COVID escaped from a Chinese research laboratory.â Meanwhile, Skinner writes, â[g]lobal leaders includ- ing President Joe BidenâŚhave tried to normalize or even laud Chinese behavior.â She adds, âIn some cases, these voices, like global corporate giants BlackRock and Disneyââor the National Basketball Association (NBA)ââdirectly benefit from doing business with Beijing.â Former vice president of the U.S. Agency for Global Media Mora Namdar writes in Chapter 8 that we need to have people working for USAGM who actually believe in America, rather than allowing the agencies to function as anti-American, tax- payer-funded entities that parrot our adversariesâ propaganda and talking points. Former acting deputy secretary of homeland security Ken Cuccinelli says in Chap- ter 5 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a creation of the George W. Bush era, should be closed, as it has added needless additional bureaucracy and expense without corresponding benefit. He recommends that it be replaced with a new âstand-alone border and immigration agency at the Cabinet levelâ and that the remaining parts of DHS be distributed among other departments. Former chief of staff for the director of National Intelligence Dustin Carmack writes in Chapter 7 that the U.S. Intelligence Community is too inclined to look in the rearview mirror, engage in âgroupthink,â and employ an âoverly cautiousâ approach aimed at personal approval rather than at offering the most accurate, unvarnished intelligence for the benefit of the country. And in Chapter 9, former acting deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development Max â 90 â Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Primorac asserts that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) must be reformed, writing, âThe Biden Administration has deformed the agency by treating it as a global platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived systematic racism.â If the recommendations in the following chapters are adopted, what Skinner says about the State Department could be true for other parts of the federal gov- ernmentâs national security and foreign policy apparatus: The next conservative President has the opportunity to restructure the making and execution of U.S. defense and foreign policy and reset the nationâs role in the world. The recom- mendations outlined in this section provide guidance on how the next President should use the federal governmentâs vast resources to do just that.
Introduction
â 89 â Section 2: The Common Defense The solution to this problem is strong political leadership. Skinner writes, âThe next Administration must take swift and decisive steps to reforge the department into a lean and functional diplomatic machine that serves the President and, thereby, the American people.â Because the Senate has been extraordinarily lax in fulfilling its constitutional obligation to confirm presidential appointees, she recommends putting appointees into acting roles until such time as the Senate confirms them. Skinner writes that State should also stop skirting the Constitutionâs trea- ty-making requirements and stop enforcing âagreementsâ as treaties. It should encourage more trade with allies, particularly with Great Britain, and less with adversaries. And it should implement a âsovereign Mexicoâ policy, as our neighbor âhas functionally lost its sovereignty to muscular criminal cartels that effectively run the country.â In Africa, Skinner writes, the U.S. âshould focus on core security, economic, and human rightsâ rather than impose radical abortion and pro-LGBT initiatives. Divisive symbols such as the rainbow flag or the Black Lives Matter flag have no place next to the Stars and Stripes at our embassies. When it comes to China, Skinner writes that âa policy of âcompete where we must, but cooperate where we canââŚhas demonstrably failed.â The Peopleâs Repub- lic of Chinaâs (PRC) âaggressive behavior,â she writes, âcan only be curbed through external pressure.â Efforts to protect or excuse China must stop. She observes, â[M]any were quick to dismiss even the possibility that COVID escaped from a Chinese research laboratory.â Meanwhile, Skinner writes, â[g]lobal leaders includ- ing President Joe BidenâŚhave tried to normalize or even laud Chinese behavior.â She adds, âIn some cases, these voices, like global corporate giants BlackRock and Disneyââor the National Basketball Association (NBA)ââdirectly benefit from doing business with Beijing.â Former vice president of the U.S. Agency for Global Media Mora Namdar writes in Chapter 8 that we need to have people working for USAGM who actually believe in America, rather than allowing the agencies to function as anti-American, tax- payer-funded entities that parrot our adversariesâ propaganda and talking points. Former acting deputy secretary of homeland security Ken Cuccinelli says in Chap- ter 5 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a creation of the George W. Bush era, should be closed, as it has added needless additional bureaucracy and expense without corresponding benefit. He recommends that it be replaced with a new âstand-alone border and immigration agency at the Cabinet levelâ and that the remaining parts of DHS be distributed among other departments. Former chief of staff for the director of National Intelligence Dustin Carmack writes in Chapter 7 that the U.S. Intelligence Community is too inclined to look in the rearview mirror, engage in âgroupthink,â and employ an âoverly cautiousâ approach aimed at personal approval rather than at offering the most accurate, unvarnished intelligence for the benefit of the country. And in Chapter 9, former acting deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development Max
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About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.