Viewpoint: New England needs U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement
James T. Brett, Worcester Business Journal
In New England, our manufacturers, technology firms, financial and insurance institutions, and countless small businesses depend on trade relations and the rules that govern the free flow of goods and services in order to ensure prosperity. For our region, economic ties need to be strengthened in order to ensure continued growth across our six states. It is why it is imperative that our nation remains committed to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Prior to the USMCA being negotiated, there were few who would dispute that an update to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was needed to bring our trade relations with Canada and Mexico into the 21st century. The USMCA has done so: The updates brought on by the treaty have provided stability to the trade relationship we have with our neighbors, which in turn supports broad-based growth among all three nations.
The importance of our region’s trade partnerships with Canada, in particular, cannot be denied. The U.S. Department of Commerce has identified Canada as a number one or number two export market for New England businesses, and our overall level of trade with Canada has increased since the implementation of the USMCA. Indeed, our region exported nearly $8.8 billion in goods to Canada in 2025. Data from Canada shows in 2025, service exports from our six-state area to our northern neighbor totaled approximately $6.25 billion. Further, it is not an overstatement that, overall, hundreds of thousands of jobs in New England rely in some part on trade and investment with our USMCA partners.
From the outset of the first President Donald Trump Administration, trade leaders in the Senate, House of Representatives, and in the administration worked in good faith to make improvements as they were putting together the USMCA to ensure bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress. The final product did not contain all of what business interests wanted in a trade agreement. However, it reached a consensus that has allowed our economy to continue to flourish.
The USMCA has ensured that businesses in our region have the advantage of rules-based investment and trade. The continued reliance on this level of predictability can only serve to maintain and even grow business opportunities for New England for years to come. There are numerous benefits to be had by engaging in trade with our neighbors especially as we look to solidify supply chains among our six states at a time of unpredictability around the globe.
For New England, the choice is clear: We need the USMCA to help solidify our regional commerce and provide companies of every size the confidence to invest, hire, and sell across North America. While policymakers consider the future of trade, they should listen to the businesses that depend on it every day. And as we face a July 1st deadline for the Joint Review of USMCA, strengthen it, enforce it, modernize it – but do not forego it. Lasting benefits will continue under the auspices of the USMCA and New England’s economy will remain stronger for it.