AAPD 20-07: United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (Class deviations from the FAR and the AIDAR)

AAPDs provide information of significance to all agency personnel and partners involved in the Acquisition and Assistance process. Information includes (but is not limited to): advance notification of changes in acquisition or assistance regulations; reminders; procedures; and general information. Also, AAPDs may be used to implement new requirements on short-notice, pending formal amendment of acquisition or assistance regulations.

Subject Category: Acquistion Management

Purpose: The purpose of this AAPD is to inform Acquisition and Assistance professionals of the issuance of class deviations from the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the AIDAR ((Deviation #: M/OAA-DEV-FAR-20-07c and M/OAA-DEV-AIDAR-20-05c respectively) to incorporate into these regulations the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act (Pub. L. 116-113), which are replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

This AAPD is effective through September 1, 2022, unless extended or incorporated earlier into the FAR and the AIDAR.

REQUIRED ACTION:
Solicitations and Resulting Contracts:
As prescribed in the FAR and when applicable, COs must include the deviated version of the provisions and clauses or their alternates, as listed in the table in Section 4, GUIDANCE,
as follows:

1. In solicitations issued on or after effective date of this AAPD, and resultant contracts; and
2. For acquisition of supplies or for construction performed within the United States, in solicitations issued on or after July 1, 2020, provided the award of the resulting contract(s) occurs on or after the effective date of this AAPD.

COs are not required to modify awards issued before the effective date of this AAPD.

BACKGROUND:
On January 29, 2020 the United States adopted the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States (Mexico), and Canada (the USMCA). The USMCA is effective July 1, 2020. For more information on the USMCA please refer to this rule by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency.
The USMCA supersedes NAFTA, so all references in the FARand the AIDAR to NAFTA are replaced with USMCA. Although Canada is still a designated country under the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement, Canada is no longer a Free Trade Agreement country, because chapter 13 of the USMCA (government procurement) applies only to the United States and Mexico. Therefore, all references in the FAR to Canada as a Free Trade Agreement country are deleted, including the $25,000 threshold. The thresholds remain unchanged for Mexico. The applicable changes will be incorporated into the FAR under the FAR case 2020-014.

AAPDs are EFFECTIVE AS OF THE ISSUED DATE unless otherwise noted in the guidance below; the directives remain in effect until this office issues a notice of cancellation.

 Date Issued: September 02, 2020