(ThyBlackMan.com) On Monday morning, I saw what amounted to an itty-bitty mention on a major news website that correlated to similar itty-bitty mentions on corresponding major news websites and other media covering the announcement of the newly minted United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). This is the trade deal orchestrated by President Donald Trump that was crafted to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
I remember the mega-hoopla over NAFTA in the press when President Bill Clinton prepared to sign the agreement with Canada and Mexico. It was heralded even more joyfully than an obscure Clinton edict that forevermore forced law-abiding tobacco consumers to wait on customer service clerks processing Western Union transfers for illegal immigrants to their home countries in order to make purchases out of retail vaults, so intent was that administration on limiting access to cigarettes “for the sake of our children.”
As I recall, given the fanfare at the time, one would have thought that the advent of NAFTA was the biggest thing since the end of World War II.
In truth, of course, NAFTA was an establishment farce and the brainchild of domestic globalists who sought to weaken the U.S. as a dominant economic player. Since its inception, NAFTA has contributed to massive trade deficits and the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs that continues to this day.
NAFTA also contributed to America’s troubles with illegal immigration across our southern border, which has not-so-coincidentally dominated the news of late. With the increased ease by which Mexico was able to import food products from the U.S. under NAFTA, over 1 million Mexican farmers lost their livelihoods. I’ll give you three guesses as to where those farmers sought greener pastures, but here’s a hint: Between 1990 and 2000, the number of annual illegal immigrants from Mexico actually doubled.
Those are just a few of the reasons conservatives have long sought to replace the abysmal trade agreement.
Strangely enough, there hasn’t been as much in the way of protestation as one might have expected from our northern and southern trade partners as regards USMCA considering the universal disdain the political left seems to have for everything Trump. On Sunday, Canada’s red-diaper baby Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “It’s a good day for Canada” in reference to the new trade pact – this despite the two leaders’ heretofore adversarial relationship, particularly pertaining to trade. I would have expected Trudeau to warn that USMCA would lead to a global economic collapse and bread lines, if not widespread cannibalism.
Well, there are probably a few reasons for this lack of resistance to USMCA on the part of Mexico, Canada and the political establishment. One is that Trump had the political capital to make USMCA happen, plain and simple. In the face of this inevitability, what was Trudeau going to do – declare war?
Another likely reason is that even in the worst of times, Canada and Mexico remain our closest neighbors and most advantageous trading partners. With America still being the dominant economic factor in this equation, Canada and Mexico are somewhat relegated to a “go along to get along” deportment when any American president gets a bee in his bonnet over trade policy.
The final rationale for Canada and Mexico signing on to USMCA – as well as the most important but least-understood – would have to do with President Trump’s flair for adroitly handling people and his legendary business acumen. In business, seldom do scenarios play out as in Hollywood dramatizations of the corporate world. It’s quite unlike the toxic D.C. environment, where political power players crush their adversaries utterly or convert them into reluctant, broken toadies. In Trump’s world (business), “losers” usually make out quite well. They may get beaten up a bit on the way to the table, but that’s just part of the process.
Trump’s forging a tentative bilateral trade deal with Mexico last year and his indication that he would impose steep tariffs on automotive imports if Canada did not sign the new agreement was part of that process.
Canada and Mexico – as well as other U.S. trade partners who need to be reminded of which side of the bread their butter is on – will continue to do well as Trump moves forward. They’re well aware that, as Trump often reminds us, many of our swamp-fostered trade agreements have put America at a distinct disadvantage for decades, and he intends to change that.
On the campaign trail two years ago, Trump promised to replace NAFTA. Were he a typical beltway politician, we’d be surprised by his keeping that promise. Since it’s Trump, we take it for granted.
Written by Erik Rush
Official website; http://www.erikrush.com
