Trump Pressures Congress, Threatens to Terminate NAFTA

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President Donald Trump now says that he is planning to formally terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In a statement Saturday night the president said that he will do this as a way for him to exert pressure on Congress. He is anxious to get congressional approval for his new trade deal with Canada and Mexico which he maintains is better than NAFTA. Most experts do not agree with this, and believe that the president is merely trying to gain political points with his supporters since he heavily criticized NAFTA when he was campaigning to become president.

“JUST IN: Trump to formally terminate NAFTA, pressures Congress to approve his new trade deal.”

“I will be formally terminating NAFTA shortly,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One while returning from the Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

“Then Congress will have a choice of approving the USMCA, which is a phenomenal deal,” he added, referring to the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, which is his new trade proposal. “Much, much better than NAFTA. A great deal,” he boasted.

Trump also again called NAFTA a “disaster” for the United States, which is a term he used many times to describe the agreement in his presidential campaign.

“It’s caused us tremendous amounts of unemployment and loss and company loss and everything else. That’ll be terminated,” the president said, then added,

“And so Congress will have a choice of the USMCA or pre-NAFTA, which worked very well. You got out, you negotiate your deals. It worked very well. Okay?”

Trump had previously said that the leaders of Mexico and Canada signed a revised North American trade agreement on Friday. The new agreement reportedly rewrites many trade rules that currently apply to economic transactions among the three nations.

There is no guarantee that Trump will obtain the required congressional approval for the new agreement. Democrats are reportedly skeptical of the new agreement and are not anxious to give Trump a political victory which could help him if he runs for reelection in 2020.

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Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.