Trade under Trump

SIR – Donald Trump’s insulting attitude towards all manner of individuals and groups, his short temper and his unwillingness to accept criticism have been much discussed.

However, his economic proposals have been subjected to less detailed analysis. The claim which seems to have had the widest appeal for his supporters was that, by attempting to renegotiate Nafta, he would somehow bring jobs back to the decaying rust belt and “make America great again”.

In the first nine months of 2016, US-Mexican trade totalled $390 billion with a 12 per cent trade gap in favour of Mexico. In the same period, USCanadian trade totalled $407 billion with a 1.4 per cent gap in Canada’s favour. What could the US expect to gain by attempting to renegotiate this agreement with two of its three largest individual national trading partners?

Trump has promised to impose 40 per cent tariffs on imports from China, but the first and biggest loser would be Apple, the most valuable American corporation, which could not possibly relocate its manufacturing to the US without such enormous capital investment that its profitability would be in danger for years to come.

The tragedy for the millions of Americans who voted for Trump, believing that he would somehow undo decades of decline in manufacturing industries, will be that these policies are likely to make their lot worse, rather than better. Guy Sainty London W1 SIR – It is all very well for the Government to claim that it does not need the involvement of Nigel Farage in negotiations with Donald Trump (report, November 15).

However, it might be difficult to prevent Mr Trump from responding to any proposal with: “It sounds OK, but let me run it past Nigel.” Neil Shepherd-Smith Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire