Well, it’s already been a hell of a week for international trade. Trump formally withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership today, and says that he’ll renegotiate NAFTA “at the appropriate time.”
After signing the TPP docs he said, “We are going to stop the ridiculous trade deals that have taken everybody out of our country and taking companies out of our country.” Republican Senator John McCain, often a critic of Trump, said that was a “serious mistake” because he believes doing so will affect American exports, create trade barriers, close America off to some markets, and leave American invention and innovation unprotected. He also said that withdrawing from the TPP (the trade deal that is designed to partner western countries together to lessen the economic trading power of China), “will create an opening for China to rewrite the economic rules of the road.”
In regards to NAFTA, looks like it could be as soon as Monday that President Trump signs an executive order stating his intentions to renegotiate the free trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Read the original CBC article by Pete Evans on January 23rd here.
Feature image by Evan Vucci of the Associated Press.
