It was never very likely that Congress would vote to ratify Trump's fake replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but now that he's being impeached he has a convenient excuse for the deal's expected failure.
Speaking to reporters this morning, Trump says he doesn't think his fake deal will be ratified because Democrats will be too busy with impeachment.
“I don’t know if Nancy Pelosi’s going to have any time to sign it,” the president said, adding that he believes the House leader is wasting her time on a “manufactured crisis.”
“I don’t think they can do any deals,” Trump said. Later, appearing to reference impeachment proceedings, Trump said what all Democrats are talking about is “nonsense.”
The primary obstacle to ratifying Trump's fake replacement is not impeachment or any other item on the congressional schedule.
The primary obstacle is the fact that it just doesn't matter. Trump's so-called United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) is nearly identical to NAFTA so there's no urgency to either ratify it or reject it. It could be ratified tomorrow or never and it wouldn't make a significant difference. It won't make a difference politically or economically. It's a big nothing.
If members of Congress could point to specific clauses of the USMCA and say it's proof that they're bringing home the bacon, ratifying the deal may be a higher priority, but there's nothing like that in the deal. Even the limited changes the deal does make are nebulous, like increasing content thresholds for cars produced in North America by a few percentage points. That could literally mean nothing more than installing a different stereo.
Legislation with no clear beneficiaries is unlikely to ever move at anything more than a snail's pace.