UPDATES below: The Devilish Details of TRUMPSTA Begin to Emerge
Note well: This is not a free trade deal but a crony trade deal.
A crony trade deal is better than no trade but rest assured, the devil will be in the details.
Return to this post for updates as details emerge and it is revealed who will benefit and who will get screwed.
-RW
UPDATE 1
First anti-free trade details emerge.
Via Victoria Guida
Biggest NAFTA updates in USMCA seem to be:
-higher bar for no car tariff but must be 75% made among the 3 members, up from 62.5%.
-more labor rules
Note: This all pro-union protectionist regulation that is worse than tariffs and shrinks North American economies.
UPDATE 2
From Bloomberg:
COMMERCE SECRETARY ROSS: NO TIMELINE TO REMOVE METAL TARIFFS ON CANADA, MEXICO
UPDATE 3
Cato's Simon Lester and Inu Manak on Trumpsta:
Overall, the new agreement is kind of a mixed bag. There are some improvements, mainly the liberalization of a few Canadian agricultural sectors. However, the agreement is made worse in some ways by making it harder for autos to qualify for zero tariffs. The new agreement has also been modernized by including some recent Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) innovations, which is good. But there are systemic provisions that are not very good.
But the last NAFTA was a free trade deal where no one got screwed? You can't have it both ways.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a reading comprehension problem or just dishonest?
DeleteI have consistently referred to NAFTA as a crony trade deal. See for example:
"Note: NAFTA is a crony trade deal. However, crony trade is better than no trade."
at http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2017/04/hot-trump-considering-withdrawal-from.html
Your continual remark that "crony trade is better than no trade" is yet another example of your cronyist sentiment and your lack of intellectual honesty. There is no choice between crony and zero! Crony limits opportunity from those who are not well-connected, tarrif raises the price by x% for all participants. There is trade without a crony deal, but you cannot stop your silly lies!
Delete@Philip Martin
Delete"Crony limits opportunity from those who are not well-connected, tarrif raises the price by x% for all participants."
This is exactly why crony trade is less evil than blanket trade restrictions. Given the choice between selective beatings and universal beatings, we should obviously prefer the former, because it means that fewer people are beaten. If one slave gets whipped, he should demand that he stop being whipped, not that his fellow slaves receive equal whippings.
DJT promised better deals. Compared to what existed before, one would assume. Indeed, the devil WILL be in the details.
ReplyDelete