Trump and Sanders want NAFTA axed

New Hampshire primary winners both opposed to 1994 trade deal

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Both winners of the New Hampshire primary oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement and say they want to scupper the deal should they win the presidency.

Such an idea faces monumental political and legal obstacles, though, starting with the fact that Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders are still far from winning their respective party nominations, let alone the White House.

But they have served notice that they want to end the 1994 agreement that had wide-ranging consequences for trade among Canada, the United States and Mexico.

“We will either renegotiate it or we will break it,” Trump told CBS last fall, panning the deal as a disaster. “Every agreement has an end.”

Republican Trump says he likes free trade in theory, but the current deals are no good. However, much like his proposal to kick out illegal migrants and ban Muslim travel to the U.S., Trump is stingy with specifics.

Democrat Sanders has been consistent. He has opposed the trade deal since it was first signed and even staged a memorable protest against NAFTA early in his congressional career.

He introduced a bill that would have slashed the salaries of American politicians — to harmonize them with their Mexican counterparts — so they could feel the impact they were imposing on workers.

“The essence of NAFTA is that American workers will be forced to compete against the desperate and impoverished people of Mexico who earn a minimum wage of 58 cents an hour,” Sanders told the House of Representatives, where he sat before entering the Senate.

“It is only appropriate that we, the Congress, lead by example. [Mexican politicians] earn the equivalent of $35,000 US a year. If we’re going to ask American automobile workers and dairy farmers and truck drivers to be competitive with counterparts in Mexico, then the salaries of the U.S. Congress should be competitive with the Mexican Congress.”

Unsurprisingly, his 1993 bill failed. NAFTA, on the other hand, passed.

Now Sanders’ presidential election platform promises to “reverse” trade policies like NAFTA.

One trade lawyer says his legally trained ears detect the sound of wiggle room there — reversing trade policies could mean any number of things.

Toronto-based Mark Warner is skeptical either candidate would cancel the deal.

It would be mind-bogglingly complex, he said. Even if a president provided six months’ notice that the U.S. was pulling out, elements of NAFTA have since been embedded in the World Trade Organization agreement.

Another problem is that old tariffs couldn’t just snap back into place. The U.S. Congress would have to reimpose them. It would be difficult getting tariffs through both chambers — including the Senate, where they’d need 60 per cent support.

“It strikes me as very unlikely that you’d do it,” Warner said.