President Trump Vows To Keep Promise To Renegotiate NAFTA By August

President Trump and the United States on Monday launched their first batch into the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, by saying it's a campaign promise that the President hopes to fulfill by renegotiating NAFTA to balance the United States growing trade deficit with Canada and Mexico.

The Administration had a highly anticipated document sent to lawmakers, in which U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he would be seeking to reduce the trade deficit by improving new access for goods exported from the United States into both Canada and Mexico under the three-nation pact.

In a groundbreaking clause of the NAFTA renegotiation of the U.S. trade deal, the Administration also said it wants what it calls an "appropriate" provision to prevent currency manipulation by trading partners of the United States of America.

While such an action will likely be directed at future trade deals rather than specifically at Canada and Mexico, it's the first official time such tone has ever been put into American trade deals regardless if those in NAFTA are considered currency manipulators.

The newly released seventeen page document stated firmly that “no country should manipulate its currency exchange rate to gain an unfair competitive advantage”, which has often been a complaint about China in past years.

President Donald Trump today spoke against trade deals and unfair trade practices that hurt the United States, saying he would take many more legal and regulatory steps during the next six months to protect American manufacturers first and ensure their ability to compete and produce.

The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland said the new list from the United States was "part of its internal process”, and that Canada looks forward to cooperating with the Trump Administration on furthering their trade with the United States in a fair and unbiased fashion.

Among the top priorities in the new agenda the Administration will seek to eliminate a trade dispute mechanism that has largely prohibited the United States from pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases against Canadian and Mexican firms.

There was no mention of active disputes between the United States and Canada over their competing softwood lumber and dairy products, but the document has targeted a range of agricultural non-tariff barriers, including subsidies and unfair pricing structures, that are currently at the heart of those standoffs.

Trade representatives say that the new agenda would seek to strengthen NAFTA's rules of origin to ensure that the pact's benefits do not go to outside countries and to "incentivize" the sourcing of U.S. goods.

It offered no specifics on such incentives and did not specify how much of a product's components must originate from NAFTA countries.

No date has been announced for the NAFTA talks, but they are expected in the middle of August as the President hopes to encounter a booming 2018 due to his newly enacted policies of ‘Business First’ removing harsh regulations and practices from nations which seek to rip off the United States.

Not only did President Trump Monday snow off American made products for his “Made in America” week but he promised to boost U.S. manufacturing by cutting the $64 billion trade deficit with Mexico as he showcased products made in all 50 states, everything from a fire truck, to a bulldozer, to heavy semi trucks, to a baseball bat.

President Trump while showing off American made products put on a cowboy hat from Texas, swung a baseball bat from Louisiana, and he even climbed into the cab of a Wisconsin made fire truck saying, "Where's the fire? Where's the fire? Put it out fast!"

In a speech today the President said, "No longer are we going to allow other countries to break the rules, to steal our jobs and drain our wealth.”

Once the President had given his remarks, the U.S. trade Representative released their new report about its goals for updating the decades old North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

The President said that in addition to reducing the trade deficit, the administration wants to insert a chapter on the digital economy into the deal. We're in a new era, a modern age, and such inclusiveness should only benefit the American system and its ability to compete.

Source

http://www.journal-news.com/news/national-govt--politics/trump-wants-new-nafta-deal-cut-trade-deficit-with-mexico/bfal1DlP7fi1GimAsA1UgN/