Biden White House Suffers Embarrassing Defeat Defending Powerful Mexican Labor Union
11th June 2024
The White House took the unprecedented step of intervening in an international labor dispute last year after a push from powerful U.S. labor unions. Then, months later, a multi-nation tribunal threw the case out, handing a defeat to the administration and its labor allies.
Last year, the AFL-CIO and United Steelworkers—which collectively represent more than 13 million American workers and regularly funnel millions of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to Federal Election Commission data—made their formal appeal to the White House’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), according to legal filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
In the appeal, the unions called on the administration to invoke a little-known clause in the 2020 North American trade agreement in support of Los Mineros, a Mexican miners’ union locked in a years-long labor dispute with the massive San Martin mine in Zacatecas, Mexico. The White House, which regularly claims to be the most pro-union White House in U.S. history, soon obliged and assembled a panel to review the case.