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Wilbur Ross looks like Red Foreman at 105 years old.
Threatening to walk away from a deal to get better terms is pretty standard no? It isn't really backing down when you don't walk away, it's backing down if you don't get better terms and don't walk away
When you already overwhelmingly benefit from the deal, you don't threaten to scrap the entire thing.
Tweak it, sure. But threatening to blow it up is full retard.
This guy beat me to it.
From launching a data-mining drive aiming to find supply-chain pressure points to sending officials to mobilize allies in key U.S. states, Mexico and Canada are bolstering their defenses of a regional trade pact President Donald Trump vows to rewrite.
Trump has blamed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs and has threatened to tear it up if he fails to get a better deal.
Fearing the massive disruptions a U.S. pullout could cause, the United States’ neighbors and two biggest export markets have focused on sectors most exposed to a breakdown in free trade and with the political clout to influence Washington.
That encompasses many of the states that swept Trump to power in November and senior politicians such as Vice President Mike Pence, a former Indiana governor or Wisconsin representative and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Prominent CEOs on Trump’s business councils are also key targets, according to people familiar with the lobbying push.
Mexico, for example, has picked out the governors of Texas, Arizona and Indiana as potential allies.
Decision makers in Michigan, North Carolina, Minnesota, Illinois, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, California and New Mexico are also on Mexico’s priority list, according to people involved in talks.
Mexican and U.S. officials and executives have had “hundreds” of meetings since Trump took office, said Moises Kalach, foreign trade chief of the Mexican private sector team leading the defense of NAFTA.
Canada has drawn up a list of 11 U.S. states, largely overlapping with Mexico’s targets, that stand to lose the most if the trade pact enacted in 1994 unravels.
To identify potential allies among U.S. companies and industries, Mexican business lobby Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE) recruited IQOM, a consultancy led by former NAFTA negotiators Herminio Blanco and Jaime Zabludovsky.
In one case, the analysis found that in Indiana, one type of engine made up about a fifth of the state’s $5 billion exports to Mexico. Kalach’s team identified one local supplier of the product and put it touch with its main Mexican client.
“We said: talk to the governor, talk to the members of congress, talk to your ex-governor, Vice President Pence, and explain that if this goes wrong, the company is done,” Kalach said. He declined to reveal the name of the company and Reuters could not immediately verify its identity.
Prime target
Mexico has been the prime target of NAFTA critics, who blame it for lost manufacturing jobs and widening U.S. trade deficits. Canada had managed to keep a lower profile, concentrating on seeking U.S. allies in case of an open conflict.
That changed in late April when the Trump administration attacked Ottawa over support for dairy farmers and slapped preliminary duties on softwood lumber imports.
Despite an apparently weaker position – Canada and Mexico jointly absorb about a third of U.S. exports, but rely on U.S. demand for three quarters of their own – the two have managed to even up the odds in the past by exploiting certain weak spots.
When Washington clashed with Ottawa in 2013 over meat-labeling rules, Canada retaliated by targeting exports from the states of key U.S. legislators. A similar policy is again under consideration.
Mexico is taking a leaf out of a 2011 trucking dispute to identify U.S. interests that are most exposed, such as $2.3 billion of yellow corn exports.
Mexico is also targeting members of Trump advisory bodies, the Strategic and Policy Forum and the Manufacturing Council, led by Blackstone Group LP’s Stephen Schwarzman and Dow Chemical Co boss Andrew Liveris respectively.
Senior Trump administration officials and Republican lawmakers in charge of trade, agriculture and finance committees also feature among top lobbying targets.
Canada has spread the task of lobbying the United States among ministries, official say, and is particularly keen to avoid disruption to the highly-integrated auto industry.
A core component of Mexico’s strategy is to argue the three nations have a common interest in fending off Asian competition and exploring scope to source more content regionally.
The defenders of NAFTA also say that it supports millions of jobs in the United States, and point out that U.S. trade shortfalls with Canada and Mexico have declined over the past decade even as the deficit with China continued to climb.
Part of IQOM’s mission is to identify sectors where NAFTA rules of origin could be modified to increase regional content.
For example, U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials are debating how the NAFTA region can reduce auto parts imports from China, Japan, South Korea or Germany, Mexican officials say.
“The key thing is to see how we can get a win-win on the products most used in our countries, and to develop common manufacturing platforms that allow us just to buy between ourselves the biggest amount of inputs we need,” said Luis Aguirre, vice-president of Mexican industry group Concamin.
Trump needs to play hardball not keep back tracking on all of his campaign promises.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved President Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, a critical position ahead of renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.
Delays in Senate confirmation of veteran trade lawyer Robert Lighthizer more than 100 days after his nomination have set back Trump's trade agenda, including the start of talks about revamping one of the world's biggest trading blocs.
But Lighthizer won support from both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on Thursday, with a 82-14 vote to confirm his nomination.
The administration has had to wait for Lighthizer to be in place before triggering the formal process to begin renegotiating NAFTA. It was not immediately clear when the White House would begin that process.
Trump has said the 23-year-old trade pact devastated U.S. workers and has vowed to tear it up if he fails to get a better deal.
Some Democrats, while critical of Trump's own views on trade, said they were confident Lighthizer, who served in the Reagan administration as deputy U.S. Trade Representative, would work to help U.S. workers.
"He's a real pro," Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, said before voting in favor of Lighthizer's nomination.
Lighthizer's approval came despite the objections of two Republican senators, John McCain of Arizona and Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who said they were worried Lighthizer did not appreciate NAFTA's benefits.
While the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico has ballooned since the trade deal was enacted in 1994, U.S. farmers have profited from exports to America's southern neighbor while automakers have cut costs by building cross-border supply chains that benefit from lower Mexican wages.
Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and voted in favor of Lighthizer's nomination, also urged the incoming trade representative to be careful not to put at risk the gains NAFTA has brought.
"There are definitely opportunities to update and improve NAFTA," Hatch said. "But it is important that the administration follow the spirit of the Hippocratic oath: First do no harm."
Lighthizer for the past nearly 30 years has been a trade lawyer representing American steel companies in their efforts to fight dumping of foreign-made steel below costs and unfair steel subsidies from foreign governments. He has pledged to strengthen enforcement of existing trade deals and to find new legal tools to combat unfair trade practices.
President Trump, who threatened to kill NAFTA on the campaign trail, instead recently pulled the trigger on renegotiating the trade pact. That could have massive ramifications for how the U.S. and its neighbors Canada and Mexico conduct business in the future. The move presents a golden opportunity to create the first truly modern trade agenda.
Here's what should take center stage when negotiations begin this summer: The digital economy.
A new NAFTA can set a global precedent that takes into account how much our world has changed in the last 25 years and the outsize role data now plays in business and cross-border trade.
When the North American Free Trade Agreement was concluded in 1994, floppy disks reigned supreme and the Internet was in its infancy. Today, the digital economy (driven by data, software, artificial intelligence, and analytics) spurs growth and jobs in every sector, especially in manufacturing, banking, hospitality, healthcare and education.
Despite this enormous economic impact and increasing global competition, there is no trade agreement in place that has clear, strong, and enforceable rules on data. The decision to modernize NAFTA is the perfect opportunity to create rules that ensure the digital economy can thrive and grow across North America – rules that can be used in all trade agreements to come.
So what would these rules look like?
Trade agreements need provisions that protect the free flow of data. The software we rely on depends on the rapid and seamless movement of data across borders. Making cross-border trade easier for services like cloud computing and data analytics would have broad economic benefits in every country.
Data has transformed commerce for businesses of all sizes, from small entrepreneurial companies to large American manufacturers. When data can move freely, start-ups and small companies across the continent – essential for job growth – can access powerful data processing and analytical tools without having to invest in expensive in-house computer infrastructure.
Another welcome rule would stop data localization requirements. Some countries around the world are either considering or already have put into place laws and policies that restrict data flows and instead lock data within their individual borders.
One practical way this manifests itself is by requiring companies to build data centers within a country's borders if they want to operate in that country. Those barriers are too often rationalized on privacy or security grounds. NAFTA and other modern trade agreements should require close scrutiny of these rationales to ensure that they are narrowly drawn and not veiled ways to block companies from serving global markets.
No digital trade framework would be complete without protections for the development of emerging technologies, which allow companies to expand and create new jobs. Technology is changing the way we do business every day, from electronic authentications, to artificial intelligence, to "smart" contracts.
New software should be able to break into global markets without facing an uphill regulatory battle. Companies shouldn't have to give up their proprietary source codes to foreign governments in order to do business—and right now, there is no enforceable rule in place that prevents this from happening. NAFTA can pave the way.
It's time for NAFTA to meet the digital age.
Commentary by Victoria A. Espinel, president and CEO of BSA | The Software Alliance. Previously, she was an adviser to President Barack Obama on intellectual property and a chief trade negotiator under President George W. Bush.
I can't even tell which posts are serious in this forum anymore.Fair deal for all? Why and when the fuck did Trump care about NAFTA being fair for anyone but USA? I wasn't completely opposed to his presidency because he was all about "America First". Now he gives a shit about the Canadian and Mexican blood suckers?
He's pulling one hell of an about-face. On par with Obama and his pulling troops out of Iraq rhetoric.