Trump’s Instincts Triumph on Trade His unconventional methods didn’t lead to the catastrophe critics promised. By Walter Russell Mead
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-instincts-triumph-on-trade-1538433226
The midnight Sunday deal between U.S. and Canadian negotiators was a decisive victory for President Trump’s unconventional approach to trade. Even the administration’s fiercest critics are calling the revisions significant. For the first time, Mr. Trump and his allies can point to significant progress toward his core campaign promise of renegotiating trade deals to the benefit of the U.S. workers.
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement requires that cars be made with 75% North American components to escape tariffs. Forty percent of each car must also be manufactured in facilities where workers earn $16 an hour or more on average. Crucially, Canada has also cracked open the door to its dairy markets for American farmers.
President Trump’s critics will ask, not unfairly, if the incremental gains are worth a year of upheaval and strained relationships among the Nafta partners. Free-trade supporters will argue that the new, more restrictive pact will slow growth in the North American economy and erode the foundations of the global trading system. Indeed, there is no guarantee the USMCA will make it through Congress, especially if the Democrats take one or both houses in the coming midterms.
But for Mr. Trump, trade deals with Mexico, Canada and South Korea—and progress in discussions with the European Union and Japan—allow him to wrong-foot his critics once again. Contrary to the dire warnings in many quarters, Mr. Trump’s unorthodox methods haven’t set off ruinous trade wars or caused a global depression. And while the new agreements are hardly revolutionary, many Americans not familiar with the fiendish complexity of trade negotiations will take the USMCA as a sign that Mr. Trump’s aggressive methods work.
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