Joe.My.God. LGBT News
On Friday, minutes after Trump signed the so-called USMCA trade deal, the replacement for NAFTA, GOP House Rep. Doug Lamborn rushed out a wailing statement that the deal’s LGBT employment protections threaten US sovereignty.
Dozens of anti-LGBT House Republicans have signed Lamborn’s complaining letter to Trump. But as it turns out, those protections may be effectively useless for LGBT Americans.
Canada’s Global News reports:
The original text of the agreement pledged all three countries to support “policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, including with regard to pregnancy, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, gender identity.”
But the final agreement has a change in language that various analyses suggest will water down its reach: The new wording calls on each country to implement policies each “considers appropriate to protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex.”
A footnote on the agreement says American federal hiring policies “are sufficient to fulfil the obligations” on labour rights, and “thus requires no additional action” by the U.S.
Honestly, whatever you think of the LGBTQ provisions in the new NAFTA, this outcome – to include them but nullify them with a footnote – is ridiculous. And it’s the kind of thing that will make progressives even more suspicious of engaging with trade liberalization (ht:@snlester) https://t.co/6dY6ZezgAE
— geoffrey gertz (@geoffreygertz) November 30, 2018