Trump scores a political win with the signing of new North American trade pact at G-20, but the deal still faces a hurdle in Congress.
BUENOS AIRES — President Trump celebrated a major political win Friday, joining the leaders of the Mexican and Canadian governments in signing a new North American trade deal that overhauls the rules governing more than $1.2 trillion in regional commerce and closes the door on a quarter-century of unbridled globalization.
In a half-hour ceremony in a downtown hotel, the president lavished praise on the agreement, calling it a “truly groundbreaking achievement,” and he nodded to his blue-collar base with claims that the measure would promote “high-paid manufacturing jobs” and farm exports.
But the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement faces uncertain prospects in Congress next year, where Democrats will control the House of Representatives and may be reluctant to help the president fulfill a 2016 campaign promise as he gears up to run for reelection.
Friday’s ceremony was relatively subdued, save for Trump’s acknowledgment that the trio had done “battle” to reach an accord.
Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose relationship has been rocky, interacted cordially, though Trudeau resisted Trump’s re-branding effort and called their handiwork a “new North American Free Trade Agreement.”
That reference to the original 1994 treaty passed unremarked by Trump, who was warmer in his interaction with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Trump singled out the Mexican leader for praise, noting that Friday was his final full day in office before Saturday’s inauguration of his leftist successor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
“This will be your last day in office, that’s a very auspicious day when you can sign something so important,” Trump told Peña Nieto. “This is really an incredible way to end a presidency. You don’t see that very often.”
Anxiety over this week’s announcement by General Motors that it was closing several manufacturing plants in the United States and Canada and laying off thousands of workers also hung over the event.
Trudeau referenced GM’s announcement in his remarks, saying the closures were a “heavy blow” to the economies of both countries.
The three leaders sat at an ornate wooden table to sign an order for their trade ministers to begin executing the deal. Trump used a black Sharpie, making his signature appear substantially larger and bolder than those of Trudeau and Peña Nieto, who signed with standard pens.
Trump was accompanied by a large U.S. delegation, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer, national security adviser John Bolton and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly.
The president’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, both senior White House advisers, also attended. Minutes earlier, Peña Nieto had awarded Kushner the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the country’s highest award, in part because of his work helping negotiate the trade deal.
The event was organized by the White House, giving Trump something of a home-field advantage. All three leaders spoke from lecterns that bore the seal of the U.S. president during their appearance inside a large conference room at the Palacio Duhau Park Hyatt, where the presidential delegation is staying.
Following the signing, Trump and his counterparts left without taking questions.
The president’s remarks appeared to anticipate the political battle that lies ahead. He predicted the deal would lead to significant growth in U.S. exports and support “many, many jobs” in the auto industry.
But the measure faces an uphill fight in Congress, despite Trump’s breezy assertion Friday that “it’s been so well reviewed I don’t expect to have very much of a problem.”
In the Senate, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), who backs expanded trade, says he will oppose the deal unless changes are made to investor protection provisions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a likely Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that she would oppose the trade pact as inadequate for American workers, foreshadowing a possible 2020 campaign plank.
Lighthizer, who spent 13 months hammering out the deal in sometimes-acrimonious bargaining, ruled out trying to rework the agreement to reflect lawmakers’ concerns.
“The negotiations are not going to be reopened. The agreement’s been signed,” he said.
Lighthizer said he “absolutely” believes the bill will get support from “a very high number of Democrats.” “I have no doubt about it.”
Major U.S. industries and agricultural interests are unhappy that the president has not removed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico and Canada, as administration officials promised during the final stages of the three-way negotiations.
“That’s bad news for a lot of us,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents multinational corporations.
Canada and Mexico also fear being hurt if Trump follows through on his interest in imposing tariffs on imported automobiles, a proposal that the Commerce Department is reviewing.
The auto industry is perhaps North America’s most integrated business, with companies shipping parts and half-finished cars across the U.S. northern and southern borders multiple times before completing production. So such tariffs would reflect a major disruption to industry operations.
Trudeau used the signing ceremony to appeal again for the metals tariffs to be dropped, citing the GM layoffs. “Make no mistake, we will stand up for our workers and fight for their families and their communities,” the prime minister said. “And Donald, it’s all the more reason we need to keep working to remove the tariffs on steel and aluminum between our two countries.”
Even as Trump, Trudeau and Peña Nieto arrived in Buenos Aires to sign the deal, officials from the three countries continued to haggle over terms for lifting the U.S. tariffs.
The deal must be ratified by lawmakers in all three nations, a process that is likely to require much of 2019.
Mexican negotiators were considering an agreement to limit future metals shipments to the United States to 80 percent of current levels, according to Dan Ujczo, a trade attorney at Dickinson Wright.
Canada, meanwhile, is resisting quotas, offering instead to beef up its cooperation with U.S. efforts to prevent inexpensive Chinese steel from entering the U.S. market, according to Eric Miller, president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group.
[USMCA: Who are the winners and losers of the new NAFTA?]
At various times this year, administration officials said publicly that the tariffs would be lifted when a new North American trade deal was reached.
The president tweeted in March that the steel and aluminum levies would “only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed.”
Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Gerónimo Gutiérrez, told reporters earlier this month that his government expected that there would be “either a solution or a very clear track to a solution” by the time the deal was signed.
Though the unresolved tariff battle left a cloud over the signing, Friday’s scheduled ceremony still represents a signature moment for Trump.
The president had repeatedly called NAFTA “the worst trade deal ever.”
Vows to scrap NAFTA and replace it with a better deal were staples of Trump’s campaign rallies across the industrial Midwest in 2016.
The new USMCA agreement requires that 75 percent of each vehicle granted duty-free treatment be made in North America, up from 62.5 percent in the current treaty, and that a substantial amount of manufacturing be performed by workers earning at least $16 per hour.
That measure is designed to reduce incentives for U.S. work to shift to lower-cost Mexican factories.
The deal contains new provisions governing e-commerce and cross-border data flows that were not part of the earlier treaty, which was negotiated before the Internet became a major commercial force.
It also underscores Trump’s turn away from the global trade deals his predecessors supported in favor of regional or even one-on-one agreements.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/econo...e5ab73310f
BUENOS AIRES — President Trump celebrated a major political win Friday, joining the leaders of the Mexican and Canadian governments in signing a new North American trade deal that overhauls the rules governing more than $1.2 trillion in regional commerce and closes the door on a quarter-century of unbridled globalization.
In a half-hour ceremony in a downtown hotel, the president lavished praise on the agreement, calling it a “truly groundbreaking achievement,” and he nodded to his blue-collar base with claims that the measure would promote “high-paid manufacturing jobs” and farm exports.
But the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement faces uncertain prospects in Congress next year, where Democrats will control the House of Representatives and may be reluctant to help the president fulfill a 2016 campaign promise as he gears up to run for reelection.
Friday’s ceremony was relatively subdued, save for Trump’s acknowledgment that the trio had done “battle” to reach an accord.
Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose relationship has been rocky, interacted cordially, though Trudeau resisted Trump’s re-branding effort and called their handiwork a “new North American Free Trade Agreement.”
That reference to the original 1994 treaty passed unremarked by Trump, who was warmer in his interaction with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Trump singled out the Mexican leader for praise, noting that Friday was his final full day in office before Saturday’s inauguration of his leftist successor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
“This will be your last day in office, that’s a very auspicious day when you can sign something so important,” Trump told Peña Nieto. “This is really an incredible way to end a presidency. You don’t see that very often.”
Anxiety over this week’s announcement by General Motors that it was closing several manufacturing plants in the United States and Canada and laying off thousands of workers also hung over the event.
Trudeau referenced GM’s announcement in his remarks, saying the closures were a “heavy blow” to the economies of both countries.
The three leaders sat at an ornate wooden table to sign an order for their trade ministers to begin executing the deal. Trump used a black Sharpie, making his signature appear substantially larger and bolder than those of Trudeau and Peña Nieto, who signed with standard pens.
Trump was accompanied by a large U.S. delegation, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer, national security adviser John Bolton and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly.
The president’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, both senior White House advisers, also attended. Minutes earlier, Peña Nieto had awarded Kushner the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the country’s highest award, in part because of his work helping negotiate the trade deal.
The event was organized by the White House, giving Trump something of a home-field advantage. All three leaders spoke from lecterns that bore the seal of the U.S. president during their appearance inside a large conference room at the Palacio Duhau Park Hyatt, where the presidential delegation is staying.
Following the signing, Trump and his counterparts left without taking questions.
The president’s remarks appeared to anticipate the political battle that lies ahead. He predicted the deal would lead to significant growth in U.S. exports and support “many, many jobs” in the auto industry.
But the measure faces an uphill fight in Congress, despite Trump’s breezy assertion Friday that “it’s been so well reviewed I don’t expect to have very much of a problem.”
In the Senate, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), who backs expanded trade, says he will oppose the deal unless changes are made to investor protection provisions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a likely Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that she would oppose the trade pact as inadequate for American workers, foreshadowing a possible 2020 campaign plank.
Lighthizer, who spent 13 months hammering out the deal in sometimes-acrimonious bargaining, ruled out trying to rework the agreement to reflect lawmakers’ concerns.
“The negotiations are not going to be reopened. The agreement’s been signed,” he said.
Lighthizer said he “absolutely” believes the bill will get support from “a very high number of Democrats.” “I have no doubt about it.”
Major U.S. industries and agricultural interests are unhappy that the president has not removed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico and Canada, as administration officials promised during the final stages of the three-way negotiations.
“That’s bad news for a lot of us,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents multinational corporations.
Canada and Mexico also fear being hurt if Trump follows through on his interest in imposing tariffs on imported automobiles, a proposal that the Commerce Department is reviewing.
The auto industry is perhaps North America’s most integrated business, with companies shipping parts and half-finished cars across the U.S. northern and southern borders multiple times before completing production. So such tariffs would reflect a major disruption to industry operations.
Trudeau used the signing ceremony to appeal again for the metals tariffs to be dropped, citing the GM layoffs. “Make no mistake, we will stand up for our workers and fight for their families and their communities,” the prime minister said. “And Donald, it’s all the more reason we need to keep working to remove the tariffs on steel and aluminum between our two countries.”
Even as Trump, Trudeau and Peña Nieto arrived in Buenos Aires to sign the deal, officials from the three countries continued to haggle over terms for lifting the U.S. tariffs.
The deal must be ratified by lawmakers in all three nations, a process that is likely to require much of 2019.
Mexican negotiators were considering an agreement to limit future metals shipments to the United States to 80 percent of current levels, according to Dan Ujczo, a trade attorney at Dickinson Wright.
Canada, meanwhile, is resisting quotas, offering instead to beef up its cooperation with U.S. efforts to prevent inexpensive Chinese steel from entering the U.S. market, according to Eric Miller, president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group.
[USMCA: Who are the winners and losers of the new NAFTA?]
At various times this year, administration officials said publicly that the tariffs would be lifted when a new North American trade deal was reached.
The president tweeted in March that the steel and aluminum levies would “only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed.”
Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Gerónimo Gutiérrez, told reporters earlier this month that his government expected that there would be “either a solution or a very clear track to a solution” by the time the deal was signed.
Though the unresolved tariff battle left a cloud over the signing, Friday’s scheduled ceremony still represents a signature moment for Trump.
The president had repeatedly called NAFTA “the worst trade deal ever.”
Vows to scrap NAFTA and replace it with a better deal were staples of Trump’s campaign rallies across the industrial Midwest in 2016.
The new USMCA agreement requires that 75 percent of each vehicle granted duty-free treatment be made in North America, up from 62.5 percent in the current treaty, and that a substantial amount of manufacturing be performed by workers earning at least $16 per hour.
That measure is designed to reduce incentives for U.S. work to shift to lower-cost Mexican factories.
The deal contains new provisions governing e-commerce and cross-border data flows that were not part of the earlier treaty, which was negotiated before the Internet became a major commercial force.
It also underscores Trump’s turn away from the global trade deals his predecessors supported in favor of regional or even one-on-one agreements.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/econo...e5ab73310f
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