Trump may not get the 'win' he seeks in NAFTA talks

As a candidate, Donald Trump constantly called NAFTA the worst trade deal in history and promised “to get a better deal for our workers.” Now that he is president, Trump is about to find out how hard it is to get an agreement that satisfies not only those workers who feel "shafted by NAFTA" but also the powerful business interests currently benefiting from billions of dollars in cross-border sales. Top trade officials from the United States, Canada and Mexico sit down on Wednesday to begin thrashing over hundreds of issues as distinct as Canadian dairy barriers and digital trade issues affecting both countries.Even if negotiators from all three nations are able to come to consensus quickly on a new deal in the coming months, Trump still has to get the agreement through Congress, which past votes on trade issues have shown is no easy task.“This whole business of renegotiating NAFTA was a campaign pledge in search of a constituency,” said Scott Miller, a former lobbyist for Procter & Gamble now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “No business community member, no enterprise, no farm group ever asked for this.”Trump blames NAFTA for shuttering factories across the industrial Midwest. The current reality, however, business groups warn, is that pulling out of the pact would endanger an estimated 14 million jobs that depend on trade with Canada and Mexico — the two largest export markets for the United States.Miller said he saw at least a 5 percent chance that Trump would get so frustrated that he would make good on a campaign threat to withdraw from the pact, which would damage the economies of many predominantly rural states that voted for him last year. That could divide the party headed into the 2018 midterm election, potentially increasing the chances of Democratic Party gains.Another possibility is Trump strikes a deal, but there’s so little support in Congress that he never submits it for a vote and the pact is left as is, Miller said, an outcome that would also make him appear weak.Although many Democrats share Trump's negative view of NAFTA, they are a setting a high bar for what needs to be changed to get their support. They have also criticized, for example, borrowing provisions from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he discarded on his third day in office."NAFTA has cost millions of jobs and suppressed incomes across America,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who led the fight to defeat TPP. "Americans want a better deal: one that addresses our job losses and stagnant incomes by changing provisions in NAFTA that make it easier to outsource good-paying American jobs, as well as eliminating special rules that allow corporations to sue the U.S. government before a private panel of three corporate lawyers for unlimited taxpayer compensation. A free trade deal that actually helps our economy should include strong, fully enforceable labor and environmental protections, and rules to prevent currency manipulation."On the Republican side, if the White House brings Congress what the party considers to be a bad NAFTA agreement, it could face stiff opposition led by Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, who has urged Trump to modernize the pact, not end it.