{"id":1312701,"date":"2019-07-22T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T02:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/thiessen-column-if-they-wont-pass-his-trade-deal-trump-should-make-democrats-own-nafta\/"},"modified":"2019-07-22T21:01:06","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T03:01:06","slug":"thiessen-column-if-they-wont-pass-his-trade-deal-trump-should-make-democrats-own-nafta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/thiessen-column-if-they-wont-pass-his-trade-deal-trump-should-make-democrats-own-nafta\/","title":{"rendered":"Thiessen column: If they won\u2019t pass his trade deal, Trump should make Democrats own NAFTA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Marc A. Thiessen<\/strong>
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WASHINGTON \u2014 Here we go again. This week, President Trump appeared to renew his threat to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if Democrats do not pass his new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). His threats may worry pro-trade Republicans, but they are music to the ears of anti-NAFTA Democrats, who would love nothing better than to get rid of NAFTA without giving Trump a trade victory.<\/p>\n

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, has a better idea: Trump should tell Democrats that they will own NAFTA if they oppose his deal to replace it. The message should be \u201cif you\u2019re a Democrat, you essentially are voting for NAFTA if you vote no on USMCA,\u201d Portman explained in an interview on the American Enterprise Institute\u2019s new podcast, \u201cWhat The Hell Is Going On,\u201d which I co-host. If the USMCA fails, he says, \u201cyou go back to the status quo, which is NAFTA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides, Portman says, there is no good reason for Democrats to oppose the USMCA because \u201cit is such a much better agreement for Democrats than NAFTA. \u2026 It\u2019s everything that they\u2019ve been asking for, in terms of improving the NAFTA accords.\u201d Take the automobile industry for example. America has lost about 350,000 auto jobs since NAFTA was ratified in 1994, which is a third of all jobs in the industry. Meanwhile Mexico has gained hundreds of thousands of auto jobs during that time.<\/p>\n

The USMCA will reverse that decline and bring auto jobs back to America. It increases the percentage of a vehicle that must be made in North America from 62.5% to 75%. It requires at least 70% of a vehicle\u2019s steel and aluminum to be from North America. And it requires between 40% and 45% of a vehicle be produced by workers earning a minimum of $16 per hour. Portman\u2019s office estimates that, given Mexico\u2019s low wages, this will significantly shift auto production from Mexico to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the details of this agreement,\u201d Portman says. \u201cThere\u2019s a minimum wage in Mexico for autoworkers. That\u2019s not a Republican approach, but it\u2019s very helpful for autoworkers. \u2026 The rules of origin, where you have to have more things made in North American countries. \u2026 That\u2019s something Democrats have been asking for years.\u201d How, he asks, can Democrats vote against that and in favor of the NAFTA status quo?<\/p>\n

Portman points out that the U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that the USMCA would raise U.S. employment by 176,000 jobs. And the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) says the USMCA would result in $23 billion in new U.S. auto part purchases and create 76,000 U.S. auto jobs. Would Democrats prefer those purchases and those jobs go to Mexico?<\/p>\n

Or, take labor and environmental standards \u2014 longtime Democratic priorities. There are none in NAFTA. Labor and environment commitments were added only after the fact, as \u201cside letters\u201d by President Bill Clinton, but since they were not in the actual agreement, they are not enforceable. USTR says the USMCA \u201cincludes the strongest, most advanced, and most comprehensive set of environmental obligations of any U.S. trade agreement\u201d and \u201cunlike the NAFTA, the USMCA\u2019s environmental provisions have been incorporated into the core text of the agreement [and] are fully enforceable.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for labor standards, the USMCA guarantees secret-ballot votes by workers on collective bargaining agreements, and according to USTR, it requires the three countries to \u201cpractice core labor standards as recognized by the International Labor Organization, including freedom of association and the right to strike, to effectively enforce their labor laws.\u201d Do Democrats want to throw all that away in favor of an agreement with zero enforceable labor and environmental standards?<\/p>\n

Portman says Trump should tell Democrats, \u201cWait a minute, this is all the stuff you said you wanted.\u201d If Democrats block the USMCA, so long as NAFTA remains in place Trump can it hang around their necks in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, which they need to win the presidency. He can tell working-class voters that Democrats voted to keep sending auto jobs to Mexico, and against the environment and the right to strike.<\/p>\n

Democrats understand this, which is why Portman thinks the USMCA will pass. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to get done for a very simple reason, which is logic will ultimately prevail.\u201d But logic will prevail only if Trump stops threatening to leave NAFTA.<\/p>\n

Follow Marc A. Thiessen on Twitter, @marcthiessen. (c) 2019, The Washington Post Writers Group<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marc A. Thiessen AAA WASHINGTON \u2014 Here we go again. This week, President Trump appeared to renew his threat to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if Democrats do not pass his new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). His threats may worry pro-trade Republicans, but they are music to the ears of anti-NAFTA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 03:38:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312708,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312701\/revisions\/1312708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}