Trump’s ‘America First’ Trade Vision Comes Into Focus on Three Fronts President’s tactics break with predecessors’ to extract concessions, but issues with China remain unresolved By Jacob M. Schlesinger
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-america-first-trade-vision-comes-into-focus-on-three-fronts-11576436055
President Trump claimed a multi-front victory last week in his bid to reshape U.S. trade policy, extracting fresh commercial concessions from Mexico and China while stripping the World Trade Organization of its powers to restrain the tactics he used to secure them.
Combined, the efforts show an approach toward U.S. trading partners and multinationals that is focused more on pressuring companies to produce domestically and sell American-made goods abroad than on helping them expand their global manufacturing footprint.
On Tuesday, the White House announced the rewrite of the country’s largest trade deal, the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, winning approval not only from the compact’s Mexican and Canadian partners but from longtime Nafta opponents among congressional Democrats and organized labor. On Friday, the administration brokered a truce with Beijing in its year-and-a-half-long trade war, putting further tariffs on hold and securing an unusual Chinese pledge to boost imports of U.S. goods by a specified dollar amount while trade talks between the two sides continue.
In between those two announcements, the U.S. on Wednesday effectively crippled the Geneva-based WTO trade court that was launched in 1995 to prevent the kinds of trade tactics Mr. Trump has deployed to coerce America’s trading partners to the bargaining table. Over the past two years, the administration has blocked the appointment of judges to the court and, after two remaining members’ terms expired, the panel as of last week no longer had enough members to issue decisions and enforce WTO rules. CONTINUE AT SITE
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