Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has an unlikely ally in Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas when it comes to a last-minute push for changes to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement.
They’re pushing to strip the trade pact of language shielding internet companies from liability over user-generated content.
The protection has come under scrutiny in Washington, D.C., as companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, come under fire for harmful content and political misinformation on their pages.
Critics are arguing that putting those protections in trade deals limits Congressional ability to reconsider them domestically.
However, Republican lawmakers see the effort to eliminate the language as a last chance move to delay the trade deal.
Adding in a new and potentially controversial request could significantly delay the process that everyone involved repeatedly says is close to finishing up.
Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar said the U.S. put an additional demand on the table that Mexico “doesn’t want to touch.”
He didn’t say what the new demand was but did say that it came about as Mexico was “pretty much almost ready to go.”