Globalists Will Love Trump’s New Nafta Deal
Despite the fanfare, the agreement doesn’t change much.
Milk products comprise an almost infinitesimal share of the trade relationship between the U.S. and Canada.
Photographer: Christinne Muschi/BloombergFor the group of people meant to be enemies of President Donald Trump’s trade agenda, the revised North American trade deal reached shortly before the stroke of midnight Sunday looks pretty good.
Despite the new name (the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA) dropping any references to trade, let alone freedom, the tariff rates on imports from Canada and Mexico are still a mass of zeroes. The main new element — the abolition of a variety of milk Canada introduced last year to support its domestic dairy industry — is ultimately an anti-protectionist move. The main old element is some fiddling around Nafta’s rules on automotive trade which, as we’ve argued previously, aren’t likely to change much.