CANADA/MEXICO/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “New and unprecedented forms of American power may have just been entrenched in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, in a series of little-advertised negotiating achievements by the Trump administration. Alex reports that at least six provisions in the USMCA give the U.S. the power to scrutinize, micromanage, or punish its neighbors’ trade policies. To date, only one has drawn any significant public attention — language that makes it harder for Canada and Mexico to strike a trade deal with China. But Washington has also demanded and received the right to scrutinize how the neighbors are design dairy policy; stop third-country imports from evading duties; fight counterfeiting; and apply anti-corruption laws. Additionally, the deal arguably enshrines the U.S.’s unorthodox new use of Section 232 national-security tariffs in a trade agreement, by specifying modest new limits on how they’re used. A former U.S. State Department official concludes the Trump administration has ‘deputized’ Canada and Mexico in its ‘war on globalism.’”
–Alexander Panetta and Lauren Gardner, “Trump’s silent victory in USMCA,” Politico, October 11, 2018 6:00 am