NAFTA negotiations likely to miss deadline The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has benefited American consumers, workers and businesses since 1994. But ignoring the agreement’s success, President Trump instead chooses to denounce NAFTA, often suggesting the U.S. could withdraw altogether.
NAFTA has been a major source of economic growth in the United States, particularly for the automotive and agricultural sectors. Some 14 million U.S. jobs depend on the agreement with our nation’s two largest export markets, Canada and Mexico. Together, these countries spend nearly $500 billion purchasing U.S. exports annually.
President Trump’s approach to NAFTA is just one part of a misguided protectionist agenda. Unless his administration makes major course corrections, our economy will experience three attacks of severe pain from the president’s trade measures. First, the president announced in late May that the U.S. would begin imposing a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico, China and the European Union. The move was widely panned by American business leaders as damaging to U.S. economic interests, especially for […]
