WASHINGTON — In response to the news of a trilateral trade agreement reached between the United States, Mexico and Canada, Re:Create Coalition Executive Director Joshua Lamel issued the following statement:

“The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s unbalanced intellectual property chapter is both a win and loss for creativity and innovation. Negotiators for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement have produced an unbalanced text that fails to fully guarantee American copyright law.

“We are thankful that the deal includes important language on safe harbor provisions. Strong safe harbor provisions, as part of notice-and-takedown, safeguard thousands of American jobs and billions in annual investment.

“Unfortunately, the negotiators missed a crucial opportunity to explicitly guarantee fair use and other copyright limitations and exceptions, and instead chose to hide behind the weak Berne language. Fair use is a critical part of American copyright law — exporting copyright enforcement without fair use will endanger the jobs of 18 million U.S. workers and hurt industries who account for 16 percent of the U.S. economy.”