Nafta Is Dead. Long Live Nafta.
Trump’s trade brinkmanship has offended allies, sown economic uncertainty, and achieved almost nothing. Hooray?
It’s the greatest deal ever.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
On Monday President Donald Trump announced the end of Nafta, the trade agreement he’s repeatedly called a “disaster” for U.S. workers, and hailed its successor, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as the greatest trade deal ever seen. As you might therefore expect, the new agreement is just a lightly tweaked version of the old. Despite the president’s theatrics, Nafta lives on.
That’s good — because, far from being a disaster, free trade across North America serves the interests of all three countries. But Trump’s USMCA has a downside. It was achieved only after months of needless economic uncertainty and the trashing of America’s reputation as a reliable partner.