## Facts

- A nonprofit organization, labor unions, and individual union members/voters opposed NAFTA and alleged constitutional injury from its adoption and implementation.
- The United States, Mexico, and Canada negotiated a trade agreement intended to reduce tariffs and other barriers to trade.
- The three countries signed NAFTA on December 17, 1992.
- Congress enacted the NAFTA Implementation Act on December 8, 1993, approving NAFTA and creating domestic enforcement provisions through ordinary legislation passed by simple majorities and signed by the President.
- Plaintiffs sued seeking declaratory relief, alleging NAFTA was effectively a “treaty” that required Senate advice and consent by a two-thirds vote under U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2, and that the Implementation Act was therefore invalid.
- The government moved to dismiss; the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on a record presenting only legal questions.

## Issues

1. Whether the plaintiffs had Article III standing to challenge the constitutional method used to approve and implement NAFTA.
2. Whether the challenge was nonjusticiable under the political-question doctrine because it implicated foreign affairs and interbranch allocation of treaty-making authority.
3. Whether the Treaty Clause is the exclusive constitutional mechanism for approving a binding international agreement like NAFTA.
4. Whether NAFTA could be approved and implemented as a congressional-executive agreement pursuant to Congress’s Foreign Commerce Clause power and the President’s foreign-affairs authority.

## Decision

- The court held the plaintiffs had standing.
- The court rejected the government’s political-question argument and held the case was justiciable.
- On the merits, the court granted summary judgment for the United States, holding NAFTA constitutional and upholding the NAFTA Implementation Act.
- The court concluded NAFTA could be approved through the ordinary legislative process as a congressional-executive agreement and did not require Article II treaty ratification.

## Legal Principles

- Article III standing may be satisfied where plaintiffs allege concrete injury traceable to government action and redressable by declaratory relief, even in disputes involving foreign economic policy.
- A dispute over the constitutional allocation of authority between political branches can be justiciable when the court finds judicially manageable standards grounded in constitutional text, structure, and precedent.
- The Treaty Clause does not categorically displace Congress’s enumerated powers; not every binding international agreement must be concluded as an Article II treaty.
- Trade agreements that primarily regulate “Commerce with foreign Nations” may be approved and implemented by Congress via legislation, with presidential participation, as congressional-executive agreements.
- Longstanding historical practice and judicial recognition of congressional-executive agreements support their constitutionality in areas within Congress’s Article I powers, including foreign commerce.

## Conclusion

The district court held that NAFTA was constitutionally approved and implemented through a congressional-executive agreement grounded in Congress’s foreign commerce power, rejecting the claim that the Treaty Clause provides the exclusive method for adopting such international trade commitments.


Made in the USA Found. v. United States, 56 F. Supp. 2d 1226 (N.D. Ala. 1999)