Canada’s New Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico
As readers will be aware, Canada, the United States, and Mexico have recently renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The new free trade agreement between the countries is now known in Canada as ‘CUSMA’ – the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. Unfortunately, the new agreement is known by a different name in each country. Though it is CUSMA in Canada, it is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in the United States, and the Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (T-MEC) in Mexico. Hopefully, this will not cause confusion, but it is the reality that the same agreement will have a different name in each party country.
CUSMA and Canadian Immigration
CUSMA of course has many provisions relating to free trade between the parties, but in terms of Canadian immigration, really, the terms of the agreement remain unchanged from NAFTA. Presumably this is true in the other countries as well, but certainly in Canada, workers and business visitors seeking to utilize the benefits of NAFTA for temporary entry may continue to do so as they did before. (This is of course subject to current COVID-related provisions, but it is important to note that workers travelling to Canada from the United States may continue to do so. Workers from Mexico may also be able to utilize CUSMA, but during COVID times, they need to make online applications before seeking to travel to Canada.)
Effective Date/Impact on Immigration Strategies
The new agreement came into effect on July 1, 2020. But, and again, given that the immigration provisions remain the same as those in NAFTA, there should be no real impact on any specific immigration planning or strategy.
The information in this article is for general purposes only, and not intended as legal advice for any particular situation.