The Threat Of Trump's Trade Agenda

This piece was originally published by the Washington Monthly. Below is an excerpt from the piece, and you can find the whole piece here.

Democrats should be pleased with the successful negotiations over the USMCA and the deal’s passage in the Senate. While the trade agreement’s scope is clearly quite limited—and more work remains to be done on the environmental impact of continental trade—the pact achieves some much-needed tariff reduction, modernizes some aspects of digital trade, and helps to improve labor standards in Mexico. Importantly, House Democrats were able to negotiate stronger labor rights for workers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, with more effective enforcement provisions for those rights, which helped give the deal more teeth. These are all positive steps that will help American workers and businesses.

All that said, Democrats cannot wash their hands of trade policy now that the USMCA has been completed. Quite simply, the deal is only a minor piece of the president’s overall trade strategy. His larger trade agenda is undoubtedly malignant. He has attempted to tear down the global trading system by illegally circumventing the legislative branch­—moves that must be challenged strongly by Congressional Democrats. Otherwise, their win on the USMCA will be significantly undermined by a broader trade policy that has created major losses for incomes, jobs, and the rule of law. 

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