President-elect Trump found his way to the White House in
no small measure to his assiduous use of working-class anxieties about and
laying blame upon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the loss
of manufacturing jobs. Now that the
campaign has wrapped-up it is instructive to note that our neighbors ro the
north and south are our largest trading partners taking in more than $500
billion in US goods each and every year.
According to the US Chamber of Commerce NAFTA is
responsible for more than 14 million US jobs in everything from automobiles to
aircraft, agricultural products, steel and pharmaceuticals. The North American business community has
invested billions of dollars to make this work to everyone's mutual benefit.
Understanding the metrics of NAFTA is complicated and a
flippant campaign promise to tear-up a long standing trade treaty on day one
flies in the face of complicated economic policies.
It will be fascinating to observe from the sidelines the
new administration's understanding of these complexities and whether or not
they imperiously scrap the entire deal or take an intelligent and more nuanced
approach.
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