How Trump softened on NAFTA

So far, the Trump administration's aims for NAFTA appear to be "closer to revision than destruction"

President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

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President Trump "has gone squishy" on the North American Free Trade Agreement, said Peter Coy at Bloomberg Businessweek. With NAFTA renegotiations slated to begin Aug. 16, many analysts expected the Trump administration "to take a hard, nationalistic line" on updating the three-way pact with Mexico and Canada. Earlier this year, Trump called the 1994 agreement "the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere," and threatened to slap a 20 percent tariff on Mexican goods to pay for the border wall. But instead of a wholesale overhaul, Trump is now aiming for a modest revamp. The official objectives released by the White House last week "aim to tune up, not gut" the trade pact, with a U.S. recommitment to tariff-free, quota-free trade with its neighbors, along with some tough, but largely symbolic, language about reducing trade deficits. The rest of the 17-page document is "mostly mainstream ideas for furthering trade liberalization, such as speeding goods through customs." Overall, the administration's stated goals "are surprisingly tame."

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