Trump's NAFTA Revamp Would Require Concessions, May Borrow from TPP

Trump's plan to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to make it "a lot better" would not be a one-way street.

Reuters
Back row, left to right: Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, at the initialing of the draft North American Free Trade Agreement in October 1992. In front are Mexican Secretary of Commerce and Industrial Development Jaime Serra Puche, United States Trade Representative Carla Hills, and Canadian Minister of International Trade Michael Wilson.
Back row, left to right: Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, at the initialing of the draft North American Free Trade Agreement in October 1992. In front are Mexican Secretary of Commerce and Industrial Development Jaime Serra Puche, United States Trade Representative Carla Hills, and Canadian Minister of International Trade Michael Wilson.

President-elect Donald Trump's plan to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to make it "a lot better" for U.S. workers would not be a one-way street for his administration, as Canada and Mexico prepare their own list of demands that could require difficult U.S. concessions.

The 22-year-old NAFTA and other trade deals became lightning rods for voter anger in the U.S. industrial heartland states that swept Trump to power this month.

Trump—who vowed to file notice of his intent to quit an Asia-Pacific trade deal on his first day in office—pledged to leave NAFTA if it can't be improved to his liking. But he has said little about what improvements he wants, apart from halting the migration of U.S. factories and jobs to Mexico.

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