This post is adorable looking at it a little over a year later.
He doesn’t understand the Constitution, but he understands that the majority in Congress is his political bitch now. And that’s what matters.
He can disrupt and wreck NAFTA and other international agreements to the point where other parties to these treaties begin to doubt that our government is acting in good faith. Signatories to NAFTA and WTO can threaten sanctions, but it’s moot because our president is the one who clearly believes trade war is sound economic policy. The only people who can stop Trump are the voters, and that won’t happen until MAGA voters (farmers, blue collar steel workers, CEOs, major shareholders) decide that the costs of Trump’s economic idiocy is greater than the benefits of making America white again and sanctimonious protection of fetal tissue.
Oh, foreign governments and people have long ago concluded the US under Trump isn’t acting in good faith.
Except when he’s dealing with dictators of course.
Treaties are part of the supreme law of the land. The very stable genius cannot end one by himself. And any new treaty can be blocked by 34 Dems. On the other as Rick Jay suggested all the uncertainty will mean businesses cannot rely on Nafta.
NAFTA isn’t a treaty.
Do you think a majority of Congress wants to exclude Canada from the “next NAFTA?”
I think a majority might be willing to go along with it.
I don’t think there’s even 40 votes in the Senate for a deal without Canada.
You may be right. I think we’re both just guessing, but I’m not very confident about my answer, which is why it included “might”.
Looks like there is a new NAFTA deal with the US Canada and Mexico.
I watched Trump’s announcement and he thinks it is a revolutionary new deal, as opposed to a mild update of the existing agreement.
I really did not think the new deal would happen in time for Trump’s self-imposed deadline, I thought Canada was mostly playing out the clock until the next US elections.
At least a deal brings some certainty for trade to businesses. I’m not sure if there still is a version of a sunset clause.
It strikes me how much Trump bases his assessment of a country on how well he likes their leaders. Suddenly he is Mexico’s friend and has trouble saying Trudeau’s name. That can only help Trudeau.
I have yet to figure out how this new deal amounts to anything more than taking a nice hotel and putting the letters “TRUMP” on top of it, then calling it a massive and historic upgrade.
A politician touting their achievements as something grander is hardly an earth-shattering revelation.
Ok, so we are in agreement that this deal appears to be mere puffery?
Here a NYT article that discusses what is in the new plan, now called USMCA: Trump Just Ripped Up Nafta. Here’s What’s in the New Deal
*Text of the pact, released late Sunday, includes major adjustments in several key areas of the countries’ trading relationships. The agreement sets new rules for automobile production, meant to incentivize production of cars and trucks in countries that pay higher wages. It reduces barriers for American dairy farmers to sell cheese, milk and other products to Canada. It retains a tribunal for resolving trade disputes that the United States had sought to eliminate.
It guarantees Canadian and Mexican manufacturers expanded access to some large American markets, such as cars and light trucks, but leaves lingering questions about their ability to avoid tariffs on steel and aluminum exports to the United States.*
IMHO this sounds all well and good, but could it lead to higher prices for consumers, especially for cars?
I don’t know enough of the details of the deal (or the previous NAFTA agreement) to state with much confidence one way or the other. Someone else called it “a mild update of the existing agreement”. I’m willing to accept that on faith, at least until I get time to dig into the weeds of it. Let’s go with “probably mostly mere puffery”. Fair?
Sure, but I’m glad you stepped in to defend Trump’s touting of achievements that neither one of us can identify.
I’m not familiar with most of the details, although I’m happy to see that the dispute-resolution process that the US side wanted to get rid of has been retained, and I’m thrilled that despite Trump’s unpredictability, hostile rhetoric, and the general shambles of his administration that a revived NAFTA has actually come to pass, because free[er] trade is a win for all sides.
And one thing that I sided with the US on was a higher duty-free import allowance for Canadians buying American goods online. It was formerly a ridiculously miserly $20, above which you had to pay duty. Canadians should be happy to learn that it’s now going to be $150. This is a good example of how this deal is good for everyone except the criminal price-gougers: American online retailers will get more business, Canadians will get lower costs, and some of the wholesalers and importers who thought it was a great idea to raise the prices of some imported US goods sold in Canada by extortionate amounts will have to rethink their criminal strategies. The reasons for the higher costs were typically given as “… dollar exchange rate … mumble mumble … transportation costs … mumble mumble …” but the real reason was typically “because we can”. 
Yeah, it’s mostly puffery.
It makes trade a little more free, but incrementally. One can’t really argue that NAFTA was “the worst trade deal in historyr” - as a politician I can think of famously said - and turn around and say NAFTA 2.0 is a great deal, because it doesn’t change enough for that to be true. In all honestly, what Trump wanted most of all, he got - they changed the name. If they’d negotiated some minor adjustments to NAFTA, he could not have said he’d torn up the “worst trade deal in history,” it would have sounded bizarre. With is being called USMCA he can claim to the Trumpists that he’s come up with a totally new deal even though it’s going to be 99.5% the same. Which is lucky for everyone, because, of course, it was a perfectly good deal that helped all three countries.
The truth is the deal was going to fail in the US Senate without Canada, because there’s too many Republican senators in states along the border who would have refused to vote for it lest a thousand business owners with supply ties to Canada burn their constituency offices down. Hence, it looks quite a lot like the old deal, since that’s what Canada wanted anyway and kept stalling for. Hell, even what we “gave up” is mostly good for us.
One might even say we were clamoring to get it removed just to give Canada something to push back with when we wanted more access to their dairy market. Of course, given that both of them would be changes, we still look like an aggressor, being pushy in what things we get better deals on simply because we have more power, but at least it looks more like a give-and-take process.
Trump’s tactics have only increased the trade deficit, so I’m sure that whatever he agreed to will surely do what he’s already doing. Trump is making North America great again - emphasis on North.