̶F̶̶u̶̶n̶ Facts About the USMCA

You may already know that NAFTA is on it’s way out and will be replaced by USMCA. We have had some sessions and conversations over the past few weeks and would like to share a few Fun (or not so Fun) Facts that we have complied based on questions from our clients or those looking to ‘wait’ to see how the new plan is implemented and decide if they will be doing USMCA.

Which brings us to the first fact – You either USMCA or you don’t

What does this mean? If you want to continue to enjoy preferential duty treatment that was provided under NAFTA, you are not able to overlap or wait to implement USMCA and continue to declare under NAFTA. Beginning on July 1, 2020 (as of the date of this post), your NAFTA privileges will end.

You cannot repurpose your existing NAFTA Certificate of Origin

Some of our clients were under the impression that they can take the previously used NAFTA Certificate and simply change the titles from North American Free Trade Agreement to USMCA. Although many products will continue to follow similar rules and quite possibly qualify under USMCA as in NAFTA. However, USMCA does not have a formal format for the Certification of Origin, but for certain, you may not re-use the official CF-434 that was used under NAFTA.

Speaking of Certification, you need to recertify your products under USMCA

Since the USMCA is a completely new agreement, so is the law behind it. It is NOT a rewrite of NAFTA regulations. This means you will have to go through the process of qualifying your products under USMCA rules, just as you did for your most current NAFTA certifications.

But I can use my vendor certifications correct?

Again, this is a very common question we get. Just because your vendor provided you with a NAFTA certificate, quite possibly for a blanket period of one year, does not mean that you can assume or use that for USMCA. This means you need to go through the entire process of solicitation like you have done in the past for a new blanket period under NAFTA.

These, and many more questions and facts are covered in detail on our USMCA – The Modernized NAFTA course. This is not a high level 60 minute course that hits on all the main points of the changes. Our course is a full day course with a textbook that you can use as reference going forward. Our training is live and interactive. We have been doing web training for over 9 years now, this is not a response to the current pandemic. That means that you will get an experience and well-structured training where you can ask questions using audio/voice vs. a chat or Q&A box.

Don’t see a date that fits your needs or need to train a team? Email Contact@GlobalTrainingCenter.com and we can take a look at adding dates or customizing a private training for your team, you may be surprised at how feasible our team training is.