No, the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) announced Monday is not, as President Trump predictably called it, “the most important trade deal we've ever made by far.” Not even close. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with 11 Pacific Rim countries, which Trump walked away from on his first week in office, would have been far more significant for the U.S. economy. The Uruguay Round agreement that created the World Trade Organization in 1995, and China's subsequent entry into the WTO in 2001, for that matter, were vastly more important. The new NAFTA's economic impacts are likely to be minor in comparison because of the already deep cross-border trade ties in North America.
But the hyperbole should not detract from the president's accomplishment. He has succeeded in refashioning the agreement, ironically, in ways that have long been demanded by many Democrats and those on the labor left. Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative who negotiated the deal, has said, to much skepticism, that he wants to refashion U.S. trade policy to “return to the days where there was a substantial majority of people in both parties that voted for these trade agreements.”
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