After months of fiery rhetoric and tense verbal sparring with Canada and Mexico, President Trump has seemingly managed to carve out a political victory. Today, the Trump Administration announced that the era of NAFTA was over; instead it has been updated and rebranded the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement (USMCA). For Trump, ending NAFTA was a hallmark of his campaign rhetoric, and a goal that many experts thought wasn't feasible due to the strong trade alliances between the US, Canada and Mexico.
Included in the new agreement are stipulations that 30% (eventually 40% by 2023) of cars manufactured in North America must pay their workers at least $16 an hour, almost three times the average Mexican workers are paid, and automobile companies need to manufacture 75% of their parts in North America if they want to avoid having any tariffs slapped on them. As well, Canada has agreed to allow more American dairy into its fairly restrictive market, in addition to imposing restrictions on the amount of dairy Canada can export. Other aspects of the deal include stronger environmental and labor regulations and an agreement that President Trump will not hit Mexican and Canadian automakers with tariffs on automobile parts.
In a rare moment for President Trump, he’s received praise from both Republicans and Democrats for re-negotiating the deal while simultaneously upholding a critical campaign promise.
“I think there’s no question that this will be seen as a victory for Trump,” WGBH News analyst and Editor of the GroundTruth Project, Charlie Sennott said on Boston Public Radio this morning. “This is what he wanted to do, he moved the ball forward in a way that is beneficial to a lot of aspects of U.S. industries--dairy being one of them for sure, because now the United States will be allowed to increase dairy exports into Canada. That’s a big win.”
Sennott, however, says that while the negotiation will help some key industries, and is a political win for the President, it still represents a trend toward protectionism and isolationism, that might not work in an economy that is increasingly becoming more globalized.
“It undercuts an overall loss, which is a failure to understand that we do live in a global economy, that NAFTA and other international trade agreements lift all boats, and I worry about this transactional, hypernational trade policy that’s causing a lot of friction with China,” Sennott said.
Though President Trump is celebrating a moment of accomplishment with foreign allies, Sennott also warns that this agreement doesn’t necessarily mark a return to normalcy for Trump’s foreign policy. At a rally in West Virginia over the weekend, Trump heaped praise on North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un saying the two “fell in love” even though earlier in the day North Korea’s foreign minister Ri Yong-Ho said there was “no way” the nation would denuclearize.
“This playing footsie with dictators around the world whether that’s Putin, or Kim Jong- un, or many of the others that this president has flirted with, and seems to like and be drawn to, is worrisome, and we should never let go of that and keep asking hard questions,” Sennott said.
For now, however, President Trump is taking pride in a victory that is much needed after a turbulent week that included Democratic senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee walking out of a committee vote in protest of sexaul assault allegations by three different women against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and the United Nations laughing at the president when he touted his administration’s record.
