NAFTA talks have something about it for just about everyone to hate

When it comes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, it seems we truly have a policy meant to unite us – since there’s something in it that arouses the ire in just about everybody.

The logo that expresses hostile concept to many

The deal that was supposed to bring the United States into a sense of unity with the other two major nations that comprise the North American continent seems to do little more than tick people off.

TO THE POINT where it has President Donald J. Trump finding every excuse he can come up with to say he’s going to kill the trade deal off. While Mexico’s newly-elected president is going about saying he fully intends to keep the deal in place.

Which means we have yet another issue upon which the two nations can’t agree upon.

As things stand, the United States is negotiating these days with Mexico and Canada to supposedly come up with a new trade deal for the North American continent to abide by. Supposedly something that will be more equitable than the current deal – which dates back to the Clinton presidential administration.

Although if you’re old enough to remember back that you, you’ll know that it really wasn’t Bill Clinton who came up with the idea for NAFTA.

THE TRADE DEAL was the goal of former President George Bush (the elder, not his son). Yet his one-term presidency managed to come to an end before he could get Congress to go along with ratification of the deal.

TRUMP: Won't sign off now

In a sense that the Clinton Administration wanted to start off with a sense of bipartisanship, it took over the lead on NAFTA, which ultimately got it passed by U.S. officials – thereby making us a partner in the deal that was meant to keep nationalist concerns from interfering with the ability of goods to be shipped across the three North American nations.

Almost as though we were one with Mexico and Canada.

Which is an ideal I’m sure people who back this Age of Trump we’re now in absolutely despise, and which is the big reason the current U.S. president is so eager to back us out of the deal.

LOPEZ: Wants NAFTA to remain

OR ELSE FIND some sort of terms that will allow U.S. interests to think of themselves as the preeminent power and the other nations as subordinate.

Keep in mind that the original ideal behind NAFTA was to keep our local regulations from interfering with inter-American trade. None of those pesky union contracts meant to protect workers’ powers were allowed to interfere with trade.

All those environmental regulations we have developed to protect our eco-system but which other countries have no equivalent for themselves? They’re also bad, very bad, in terms of thinking of trade.

Which is why organized labor has always hated NAFTA; it was perceived as a way of undermining their influence. While also making them question the sincerity of Clinton’s “liberal” political credentials.

CLINTON: Gets the credit/blame

YET THE IDEOLOGUES amongst us always thought that the idea of trying to promote the North American nations as equals and boosting trade amongst us was somehow a subversive thought. The fact that it came up during the Clinton presidential years was all the more reason to mis-trust it.

Hence, we had Trump say recently that he’s not going to sign off on any renegotiated NAFTA deal until after the Nov. 6 elections – probably hoping that a change in political partisanship will strengthen his hand so he can be even further hard-headed in his negotiations tactics.

BUSH: His administration's idea

Yet Andres Lopez Obrador said Monday he’s going to do everything he can to keep the current NAFTA deal in place – largely because he’s the guy whose campaign’s ideology has been compared to that of failed presidential dreamer Bernie Sanders, and who sees himself as the anti-Trump.

Oddly enough, Trump’s refusal to act soon may play into Mexican interests – because Lopez’ presidential term doesn’t actually begin until December. Which makes it very likely that cheap rhetoric about NAFTA will join all the stupid talk about a border wall that will clutter up the political rants we’ll hear the rest of the year – on both sides of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo del Norte.

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With TPP, Trump pleasing some; mostly those who were already satisfied

TRUMP: First Asia, next Mexico?

I have heard from countless labor union locals who, in recent months, have been pushing a campaign to urge local governments across the nation to pass resolutions condemning the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

That is a trade agreement between the nations of North America and Asia, and its pursuit was something strongly desired by now-former President Barack Obama.

SO NATURALLY, THE knee-jerk reaction of President Donald J. Trump is to want to do away with it.

And considering that this was a deal that had not yet been ratified by Congress (which was the point of all those local resolutions – to urge Congress not to support this), it was an easy move for Trump to be negative on.

Unlike the Affordable Care Act which will take significant legal steps in order to back away from because it was approved by Congress and signed into law by a president, this merely took a presidential signature on a document. Which is action he took on Monday.

Now it seems the Trans-Pacific Partnership does not include the United States, which is a major step toward causing it to wither away into irrelevance. It will become the historic similarity to the old League of Nations, which U.S. officials pushed for in the days following the end of the first World War to try to maintain peace, but then never formally joined because of the dominance of the isolationists who prevailed in this country.

NO ONE REALLY knows what will happen in coming years with regards to trade between North American and Asian nations. The agreement was meant to erase many of the issues that complicate business dealings – which often come from people who want their parochial concerns placed above all else.

OBAMA: All his accomplishments must go!

Which includes many of the labor unions that fear these trade deals are meant to further encourage the transition of physical labor jobs to countries where physical labor works cheap.

I get that labor unions are out to preserve existing jobs for their members. But I’ll have to admit to having always thought of the general concept of the TPP as being a sound one – we ought to be working together for our mutual benefits.

Now, it seems that Trump has followed through on his “Make America Great Again” pledge as being the equivalent of turning back time – literally trying to revert back to a sense of isolationism that will wind up dragging our nation into the gutter of the world’s society.

WHILE ALSO UNDERMINING our nation’s ability to assert its authority over the world. Asserting oneself also means making some sacrifices for the benefit of the global economy.

Will Bill Clinton get full NAFTA blame?

I’m sure the labor unions that were fighting the TPP are now pleased with Trump,

Of course, now they’ll move forward to a similar cause – the North American Free Trade Agreement that says Canada, Mexico and the United States work together as one entity on trade policy.

NAFTA has long been an opposition cause of the same labor officials, who resent that former President Bill Clinton approved it into law (stealing the idea from previous President George H.W. Bush who was unable to get it approved during his presidency). Which means revoking it will entail complicated talks almost as detailed as the mess it will take to erase the Obama healthcare reform initiatives that the people want – BUT the ideologues do not.

SO NATURALLY, TRUMP has already begun his efforts there – although there’s no saying how long it will take before anything can be accomplished. For what it’s worth, NAFTA revocation under Trump is likely to focus on the same xenophobic sentiments that Trump-backers express whenever Mexico is the subject of conversation, and Bloomberg News reported that Canada officials are largely focusing their efforts at trying to stay out of the crossfire likely to occur.

Will George Bush share NAFTA blame?

Dump NAFTA and “Build that Wall!!!” are likely to be the simple-minded slogans tossed about by Trump-ites with regards to U.S./Mexico foreign policy. One who tries thinking logically about this might wonder if it winds up hurting Trump with the growing Latino population that might take this cheap rhetoric as evidence they’re being singled out for Trump abuse.

Which, my guess, is something he doesn’t care about. Consider the Washington Post reported that Trump said some 3-5 million people who shouldn’t have been able to vote in last year’s elections did so against him. Meaning in his “alternate facts” mentality, he really won the popular vote.

Meaning he probably thinks becoming “President Xenophobe” will gain him politically. And yes, I strongly suspect that Trump himself would have to have the meaning of that label explained to him by one of his aides who, in his mind, spent too much time with “book-learnin’” and not enough using his methods of chasing girls.

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