Trump, NAFTA, and America First

[Draggingtree]

Chronicle Magazine

Trump, NAFTA, and America First

By Greg Kaza - DECEMBER 08, 2017

President Donald Trump has made the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) a cornerstone of his economic policy.  Signed into law by Democrat Bill Clinton in 1993 with Republican support, NAFTA created a managed trade zone among Canada, Mexico, and the United States.  The multilateral agreement remains highly controversial among blue-collar voters a quarter-century after its inception.  President Clinton—and, at the time, his wife, Hillary—equated the provisions of NAFTA with the creation of jobs, yet manufacturing jobs in the six-state Industrial North region have declined by 1.3 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In his first debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump called NAFTA “the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country.”  And during the third presidential debate, he declared,

We’re going to renegotiate trade deals.  We’re going to have free trade . . . But we have horrible deals.  Our jobs are being taken out by the deal that her husband signed, NAFTA, one of the worst deals ever.  Our jobs are being sucked out of our economy.  You look at all of the places that I just left, you go to Pennsylvania, you go to Ohio