ECONOMY/NAFTA/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “It seems President Trump is ready to start rolling back globalization. Let’s hope he doesn’t blow up the postwar economic order.
While Mexican negotiators waited for the United States to make its first move in its proposed renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the president last week turned on the invective against another trade deal he called unfair — that negotiated by the Obama administration with South Korea.
Largely in place with the confirmation of Robert Lighthizer as the nation’s top trade diplomat in May, the president’s trade team seems itching to deploy a wall of trade protection around the United States.
This would include new tariffs on imports of steel — and maybe also aluminum — based on the novel argument that the imports somehow endanger national security. The administration is also mulling anti-dumping duties on Canadian aircraft and countervailing duties on imported solar panels.
A lot of this may look tame when set alongside Mr. Trump’s fiery campaign speeches portraying trade as the bane of the American worker. He no longer calls for a 45 percent tariff on imports from China, nor does he threaten to walk away from Nafta.”
-Eduardo Porter, “Trump’s Trade Choice: Follow the Postwar Order or Blow It Up,” The New York Times online, July 4, 2017