NAFTA gyrations causing confusion
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump campaigned on an “America First” trade polic y of bracing cl arit y: Rene go t i ate or a bandon NAFTA and crack down on China’s trade practices.
Yet so far, his trade policy has produced mostly confusion and division, even among fellow Republicans. At stake may be the president’s credibility over whether and how he will deliver on his campaign vow to undo decades of American trade policy and restore millions of manufacturing jobs lost to foreign competition.
The latest puzzler came Wednesday over the prospect that the Trump administration would simply abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement rather than start to renegotiate it. The White House leaked that possibility to reporters, rattling investors and drawing protests from business groups and Republican lawmakers.
Yet hours later, Trump called it all off. He would actually seek to revamp the trade pact with Canada and Mexico, he said, and pull out of NAFTA only if he couldn’t secure a favorable deal.
“Unquestionably, he’s not delivered on his campaign promises,” said Lori Wallach, a critic of NAFTA and other trade deals, and director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
The president’s gyrations over NAFTA have been especially puzzling. On the campaign trail, Trump called the trade deal a job-killing “disaster” that had encouraged U.S. companies to move factories to Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor. If he couldn’t get Canada and Mexico to make concessions, he said, he would pull America out of the deal.
Then, in March, the administration sent a draft letter to Congress spelling out plans to renegotiate NAFTA. The plan called for keeping much of the existing agreement intact. Many critics of NAFTA said they were deeply disappointed.
So it came as a surprise Wednesday when word leaked that Trump was again taking a harsh stance: Aides said the president was considering a draft executive order to pull out of NAFTA within days.
Many businesses complain that pulling out of NAFTA would disrupt the cross-border supply chain companies have built since the agreement took effffffffffffect 23 years ago.