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April 7, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Trump’s NAFTA
draft re-write
changes little
The AFL-CIO says President
Donald Trump’s draft changes to
the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) leaves
standing the worst and most op-
pressive parts of the pact, and
gives new life to the Trans-Pa-
cific Partnership (TPP).
“President Trump said that
NAFTA was the ‘worst trade
deal’ and committed to rewriting
the rules so that they work for
workers and not the super-
wealthy. The draft circulated by
his administration does none of
that,” national AFL-CIO Presi-
dent Richard Trumka said in a
statement.
Trump got into the White
House, in large part, on the
promise to end trade agreements
that put corporate profits ahead
of working people and healthy
communities, Citizens Trade
Campaign said in a press release.
The TPP died shortly after
Trump took office.
“If the president wants to keep
his promises, he needs to bring
that same tough stance he had on
the campaign trail to renegotiat-
ing America’s trade deals,”
Trumka added.
According to the AFL-CIO,
Trump’s draft plan leaves in
place the right of foreign in-
vestors to sue the U.S. in private
tribunals in order to skirt health,
safety and environmental laws.
The draft plan is either silent or
vague on other important issues,
including rules of origin for au-
tomobiles, labor and environ-
mental standards, currency mis-
alignment and procurement.
“The administration is not
even proposing to eliminate the
NAFTA chapter that threatens
“Buy American” and “Buy Lo-
cal” government procurement
preferences,” said Citizens Trade
Campaign. “Trump’s draft is
poised to let big corporations dic-
tate how NAFTA is rewritten.”
Shortly after the draft was made
public the conservative, pro-TPP
Cato Institute expressed relief,
saying, “In a sense, this NAFTA
renegotiation is an attempt to
make NAFTA more like the TPP.”
On March 31, Trump signed
an executive order directing the
Commerce Department to re-
view the reasons for U.S. trade
deficits and all violations of
trade rules that harm U.S. work-
ers across every trading partner.
The AFL-CIO called the trade
deficit study “long overdue.”