President Trump says Mexico and Canada are ‘very different countries’. That is true of any two countries, even countries in the EU. And on that note Trump Raises Prospect of Separate Trade Deals With Canada, Mexico.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing Nafta where you’d go by a different name… a separate deal with Canada… a separate deal with Mexico,” Mr. Trump told reporters.
“These are two very different countries,” Mr. Trump said, adding that in his opinion the U.S. loses “a lot of money with Canada” because of the existing framework, and loses “a fortune with Mexico.”
NAFTA is Dead
The Globe and Mail proclaims NAFTA is Dead and Canada Should Move On
NAFTA – at least as we know it – is dead. Donald Trump just killed it.
The reckless and crippling 25-per-cent tariff on steel and 10-per-cent tariff on aluminum that the U.S. President’s administration just used to bludgeon Canada and Mexico (not to mention the entire European Union) is the murder weapon.
When someone keeps threatening to smash you, as Donald Trump has since he announced his candidacy for president, it usually pays to take them seriously. Today, even the most committed somnambulist can’t ignore what the U.S. administration has done.
How can we for a moment believe that a renegotiated NAFTA can protect us from further unwarranted and equally ferocious economic attacks from our putative partner? The risible pretext that U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross trotted out for the tariffs was “national security,” because, as he put it, “without a strong economy, you can’t have strong national security.” We can expect this elastic interpretation to be the standard approach of the Trump administration to any disputes under a renegotiated NAFTA.
The only negotiating stance that works against Donald Trump is the ability and willingness to walk away.
Disputing NAFTA
Every time I mention trade, at least one misinformed reader blames NAFTA for the loss of manufacturing jobs. It happened again yesterday. And it’s nonsense.
NAFTA Not Responsible For Loss on Manufacturing Jobs
Manufacturing jobs peaked in June of 1979, nearly 15 years before NAFTA. Also note that manufacturing jobs rose for the first eight years after NAFTA started.
How many times do I have to post that chart before people look at it?
Manufacturing Share of Employment
As a percentage of employment, manufacturing’s decline started in 1960 for Both the US and Canada.
Balance of Trade
Trump moans the “US loses a fortune” with Mexico. The above chart shows Trump is wrong.
Moreover, a cheap supply of parts helps keep auto prices down. Consumers spend the savings elsewhere. Jobs are created, not lost, in the process.
Dear NAFTA Bashers: You Need New Charts
For a collection of still more charts on the absurdity of NAFTA bitching, please see Dear NAFTA Bashers: You Need New Charts.
True Source of Trade Imbalance
To understand the origin of trade imbalance, please see Disputing Trump’s NAFTA “Catastrophe” with Pictures: What’s the True Source of Trade Imbalances?
Trump is clueless about trade and barking up the wrong tree.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Air quality regulations? Have you tried to spend two weeks in Beijing? It their level of air quality the price you would pay for manufacturing jobs? We decided as a country a long time ago that was too high a price to pay.
There is more to this issue and “America First”-ism than economics.
Trade agreements and global agendas such as climate change and immigration and central bank coordination, and WB/IMF are about globalism as much as about addressing any particular issue.
Treaties are a means to over-ride and circumvent national sovereignty and the rights of citizens and (for example) the constitution.
Can’t get enough.
Trump is blowing-up the plan – is he really that smart?
The fact that China has not been fair in trading with America is a major reason to strengthen ties with those closer to home. A very strong strategic dimension exists for NAFTA and when President Reagan fathered and endorsed the concept decades ago he recognized the need to create a powerful regional trade bloc to compete in a changing global economy. More of why working with Canada and Mexico is smarter than letting China eat our lunch.
You’ve inadvertently touched on one of our main societal problems. We have a massive parasite class (bankers, MIC, and politicians) that face no competition and are free to mark up their wares as desired. Meanwhile everyone else is subject to relentless competition from here and abroad.
These tariffs to nothing to deter our parasite class and the benefit to average Americans is debatable at best. However, if Boeing can sell $7 cargo-rolling loaders to the army for about $1700 each and Wall St can manufacture crises to their hearts’ content, the winners at the top will remain unchanged no matter how much noise Orange Julius makes.
Air quality regulations in California has chased away thousands of companies because of the pollution tax implemented 30 years ago. That along with county regulations….NAFTA seems to have little to do with it. Come on Mish you know Mexico’s regulations are next to nothing. They are part of the equation .
Have you considered why American workers are ‘overpriced’? If you don’t mind living in third world conditions, yes the cost of labor can be substantially lower. Whatever your current job is, there is a ‘cheaper’ worker in another country.
What the Trumpistas refuse to admit is that the American worker is, in many cases, vastly over priced. No sane company will outsource production to a country if the result is an inferior product. That Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc workers can manufacture/assemble products on a par with the US worker at lower wage is lost on the protectionists. This is not 1940, 50, even 1970 when those labor forces could not compete.
If the American worker wishes to command a premium, it is time to learn new skills and move on from jobs that others can and will do for less.
“That is nonsense. No country, including the US, would sign a trade agreement that hurts them more than it helps them.”
Hahahahaha. Well, the trade agreements help those who are in power in the US. It screws over the regular American citizens. If you think those in power will not allow bad things to happen to their fellow-citizens, I have some beachfront property in Arizona that I would like to sell to you!
“NAFTA Not Responsible For Loss on Manufacturing Jobs”
Well, the US Labor Department (whose job it is to defend NAFTA and other so-called trade deals) disagrees!
“More than 950,000 specific U.S. jobs have been certified by the U.S. Labor Department as lost to NAFTA outsourcing and import floods under just one narrow program. This is a significant undercount of the job loss, given that the program, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), excluded many categories of workers during NAFTA’s first decade of damage, and reporting is voluntary, so only those who know about the program and do the work to apply are even considered. ”
From:
link to citizen.org
A few questions here:
(1) Why is free trade good for those people in developed countries who lose their jobs? Even economics textbooks (optimistically) say: free trade allows people to move into areas where they can create more value. Not all ex-auto plant workers (of 20 years experience) can create the next Facebook/ Google/ Tesla. So, what’s their alternative – move to Mexico/ China?
(2) Anyone in business will tell you, there are no permanent deals! Companies renegotiate with suppliers all the time to get better terms as they scale – economics calls this (again very optimistically) as scale efficiencies. Are free trade agreements written 10+, in some cases 50+, years ago still relevant for today’s conditions?
(3) Haven’t read enough economics to comment but here’s an open question (would love to get the community’s response on this): does it really make sense to have free trade with a country who has 5x your population and 3x your resources? I would think they can do everything cheaper, even the higher value added activities (perhaps not immediately, but over time as knowledge disseminates – why not?). Sure you get things cheaper but you lose all manufacturing jobs and face stiff competition in the higher value added jobs later as well.
(4) A fundamental tenet of economics is that human wants are infinite – which I understand, drives most economics models. Question: Are industries related to basic needs (food, shelter, clothing) the ones that benefit from free trade the most, as costs reduce and living standards rise? Perhaps the remaining industries should not be part of free trade – how else do you differentiate?
PS: Please don’t take these questions as a criticism or my firmly held support of Trump! I like to argue from an opposite point of view as it helps clarify my own thinking…
Completely agree! The real question is: can we replace the jobs lost from automation and outsourcing? Yes there are always new jobs in new areas, but two fundamental issues now exist for a broad-based jobs recovery:
(1) The basic business template is now set – the inventors, and their investors/ supporters in developed economies make a lot of money, while the item is manufactured in China/ developing world (so ordinary workers in developed economies lose), and
(2) With increased technology adoption, industries commoditize faster and benefits accrue to the #1 more than anyone (everyone else struggles to survive/ make basic margins).
The challenge for policy makers is: How do you ensure a fair society where the winners share the wealth with the losers? In other words, how do you stop the losing masses from revolting against the few winners (has always been a problem throughout human history)?
Sensible & hard to disagree with but
do you see the EU and China doing that unless one or both sides change? If they do change might it be better to change to maintain easy US access? What about US footing defence bills for others? Etc. The EU is scared stiff of China, the EU knows it has had a good US arrangement and been defended and supported by the US and that Trump will one day be gone. The US will change sooner than the Chinese regime.
Mish — the chart you show on US/Mexico trade seems to imply that the trade is nearly balanced in the $100 Billion range. But Census data shows for 2017 — US exported $243 Billion in goods to Mexico, and imported $314 Billion, a substantial US deficit of $71 Billion.
“Consumers spend the savings elsewhere”. True — but only for those consumers who still have jobs. The academic theory implicitly assumes that workers who lose their jobs due to imports will find equivalent (or better) jobs producing exports. Nice theory — but it does not conform to the real-world experience of declining labor force participation in the US.
Of course, there are many more factors in play in a real economy than simply treaties & tariffs. These are government statstics, so some of the trends lie in changing definitions — from the 1980s onwards, manufacturers began to contract out lots of people (eg canteen staff, janitorial staff, accounting staff, legal staff) who were previously directly-employed “manufacturing employees”. And let’s not ignore the Big Kahuna — the slope of the employment line on the chart Mish uses changed around 1970, coincidentally when the EPA was set up and big-time over-regulation got going.
Canada had the advantages of public healthcare and a low loonie for a long time, post NAFTA.
We came to rely rather heavily on both and became too complacent in our competitive outlook.
Trump is an incorrigible ignoramus. When you are getting more than you are producing and shipping, you are not losing. Of course you are building up liabilities, in this case held in your own currency by other parties who will just have to trust you (ha ha). Purportedly free trade and business-minded, how will war help a situation in which Canada and the US trade various steel products (yes Canada also imports steel products from the US) across a 7000 km border on the basis of price, convenience, and quality all along that border. It doesn’t get much more favorable than that.
Anecdotal story….Our manufacturing company in the SE produced a major component used by a Fortune-500 company with the majority of applications in the chemical processing and oil refinery business. We produced the part for 22 years and felt that our process was so refined that no other firm in the USA could beat our pricing. We lost the job to a firm in Mexico in 2009. Since then, the whole assembly is manufactured in China. I cannot say that the loss of the job to Mexico was due to NAFTA.