THIS policy of Obama and Clinton got a lot of the cheering and hooting at rallies. Curious how Trump followers feel about following the existing policy

"MEXICO CITY — For months, President Trump warned Mexicans that the Nafta they had enjoyed for decades would soon be a thing of the past.

He cowed manufacturers into shifting their investments from Mexico to the United States. He told Mexican leaders that he would cancel the trade agreement and levy punishing tariffs unless they capitulated to his demands in overhauling it.

So, when a draft letter suggesting a softening of his views began circulating among members of Congress this week, Mexicans expressed a range of reactions, from welcome relief to cool, wonky reason to dark mistrust.

The draft letter, signed by the acting United States Trade Representative, Stephen Vaughn, seemed to propose keeping much of the agreement in place. The language was bureaucratic and technical, devoid of the emotion and invective that has characterized many of Mr. Trump’s comments about Nafta, which he has described as “the worst trade deal” ever signed by the United States.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/w...afta.html?_r=0

Indicative of the mistrust of Trump.....AND LACK OF STABILITY which should be paramount



"“The tone has changed and that should calm us all,” Fernando Ruiz, head of the Mexican Council for Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology, said Friday. The generic nature of the document “helps cool the waters, it gives us more tranquillity rather than uncertainty.”

But some also warned that the draft was by nature bureaucratic, not political. They cautioned that with months to go before negotiations could begin, and with the mercurial Mr. Trump at the helm, anything could happen.

“I don’t think anyone really has a clue what’s really going to happen,” said Agustín Barrios Gómez, a former Mexican congressman and the president of the Mexico Image Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting Mexico’s reputation abroad. “There’s this entire optimism that the wolf isn’t going to blow the house down, but it could be toppled over in one tweet.”

Donald Trump and NAFTA

Originally Posted by Guest

Donald Trump and NAFTA

Thanks...do not want to get nto dueling links here but it was the news of the day last week...

"President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to bring sweeping changes to the “terrible” North American Free Trade Agreement just got a dose of reality.

An eight-page draft letter to Congress outlining the administration’s negotiating objectives shows how daunting it will be to translate campaign rhetoric to real policy changes that will achieve Trump's goals of bringing jobs back to the U.S.and cutting the trade deficit.

Critics are pointing out that the White House blueprint for changing NAFTA sounds a lot like the defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership deal negotiated by the Obama administration because it includes calls for U.S. trading partners to adhere to strict labor and environmental standards. At the same time, it doesn't address issues that Trump touted on the campaign trail, such as currency manipulation.

“For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP or any other same-old, same-old trade deal,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and a leading critic of current trade policy.



Trump’s NAFTA changes aren’t much different from Obama’s - POLITICO

Also in this piece to be fair....

"The U.S. Trade Representative sent the draft to lawmakers this week. But White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that the document is "not a statement of administration policy."

But the entire mood has changed in regard to this.

Originally Posted by Guest

Thanks...do not want to get nto dueling links here but it was the news of the day last week...

"President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to bring sweeping changes to the “terrible” North American Free Trade Agreement just got a dose of reality.

An eight-page draft letter to Congress outlining the administration’s negotiating objectives shows how daunting it will be to translate campaign rhetoric to real policy changes that will achieve Trump's goals of bringing jobs back to the U.S.and cutting the trade deficit.

Critics are pointing out that the White House blueprint for changing NAFTA sounds a lot like the defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership deal negotiated by the Obama administration because it includes calls for U.S. trading partners to adhere to strict labor and environmental standards. At the same time, it doesn't address issues that Trump touted on the campaign trail, such as currency manipulation.

“For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP or any other same-old, same-old trade deal,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and a leading critic of current trade policy.



Trump’s NAFTA changes aren’t much different from Obama’s - POLITICO

Also in this piece to be fair....

"The U.S. Trade Representative sent the draft to lawmakers this week. But White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that the document is "not a statement of administration policy."

But the entire mood has changed in regard to this.

Even though the link is Lefty based, we should not consider this biased and misleading, right?

Some "out takes" on a nice article concerning NAFTA.

I realize that you Trump supporters seldom read the links or anything he has not told you how to think about, but this is not all anti Trump. It is a realistic assesment of the situation.

"In his apocalyptic campaign speeches, Donald Trump routinely cited two catastrophic messes he would clean up as president: Obamacare and NAFTA. Then his push to undo Obamacare became his first policy fiasco in the White House.

Now Trump may be poised to repeat history with NAFTA."
_____

"But there are striking similarities between Trump’s approach to Obamacare and his approach to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the 23-year-old pact with Mexico and Canada that he’s called the worst trade deal in history. The parallels include his over-the-top dystopian attacks on their disastrous stupidity, his over-the-top utopian pledges to replace them with a terrific alternative to be named later, and his blithe confidence that his negotiating partners would give him what he wanted.

______

[B]The demise of the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare has inspired a lot of mockery about “the closer,” about Trump’s inability to flex his “Art of the Deal” negotiating muscles in the Washington arena. But the failure of Trumpcare was mostly a failure of substance, not tactics. It was doomed not by Trump’s incendiary tweets or tone-deaf demands but by the impossibility of reconciling his exuberant promises with real-world plans, as well as his inability to compel cooperation or compliance from people who don’t work for him."[/B]

_______

In fact, a major overhaul of NAFTA could prove to be even more elusive than the repeal of Obamacare. Congressional Republicans scuttled repeal even though they all opposed Obamacare—and most of them do not oppose NAFTA. Even more daunting, before Trump even tries to sell Republicans on an improved NAFTA deal, he’ll have to forge that deal with Canada and Mexico. And it’s hard to imagine why Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto would risk the wrath of his people by granting concessions to the American politician who called them rapists and demanded a border wall to keep them out of the U.S.

Last week, a draft surfaced of the Trump administration’s letter to Congress laying out its goals for renegotiating NAFTA, featuring a much more measured tone than Trump used while blasting trade deals on the campaign trail. That doesn’t mean he’s abandoned his contentious approach to trade. The letter carefully left his options open, and when he signed two symbolic trade-skeptical executive orders last Friday, he echoed some of his campaign bombast about foreign negotiators fleecing dumb Americans. Still, when the NAFTA venue shifts from public proclamations to backroom negotiations, Trump might struggle to achieve even modest progress for U.S. businesses and workers, much less the fantastic victories he’s promised.

For Trump, NAFTA Could Be the Next Obamacare - POLITICO Magazine