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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