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Trump and Trade

Image via Twiiter @realDonaldTrump

President Donald Trump has moved quickly to keep key campaign promises on ending or altering U.S. international trade agreements. During the campaign, Trump insisted that these agreements have hurt American workers and cost jobs, while unfairly benefiting foreign countries such as China and Mexico.

On Monday, Jan. 23, President Trump pulled out of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP), an Asia-centric trade agreement designed to bolster U.S. trading interests in the region at the expense of the Chinese.

The president has also said he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada “at the appropriate time.” Trump has also threatened to levy “major taxes” on U.S. companies that shift jobs to foreign countries.

Such moves are highly popular with his supporters. But some trade experts argue that the moves could ultimately backfire and slow U.S. economic growth.

Outlined below are views of several experts, from in and out of trucking, on these early trade moves by the Trump administration excerpted (along with their accompanying quotes) from a US News & World Report post

Winners and Losers

Marina Whitman is a professor of Business Administration and Public Policy at the University of Michigan who has long been a proponent of free trade agreements. Today, however, she says that while she still believes free trade agreements are beneficial to the U.S., and cites polling showing a majority of Americans support free trade agreements, she thinks the “unexpected” emergence of China as a major trade rival in the 1990s-- along with the failure of the American labor market to adjust and create new jobs for workers displaced by NAFTA-- have poisoned the free trade well for many Americans.

Whitman says that while there are many more American winners benefiting from free trade agreements, the negative impact from such agreements on the ...Read the rest of this story