By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

It’s the end of NAFTA, and the birth of a new trade deal that proves President Donald J. Trump is the Great Negotiator.

One of the best tools a negotiator can use is the willingness to walk away when he’s not making gains during a heated encounter with his potential fellow deal-makers.  You know what I am talking about.  When you are on a used car lot, if the car dealer is unwilling to work with you, the best move you’ve got is to be willing to walk away.  More often than not the salesman will chase you down and catch up to you at the curb as you approach your escape vehicle, and then they will at least cave to a part of what you expect in the deal.

When dealing with Kim Jong Un our president had the North Korean Leader nervous he could be bombed, yet yearning for a relationship with Trump and the United States.  Then, when the dictator tried to play hardball and began to try to flex a few muscles, Trump said “fine”, and walked away.  The result?  Kim Jong Un called Trump back, and now things are going swimmingly.

Brilliant.

President Trump did the same thing with Canada in the USMCA negotiations.  The media criticized him when President Trump told Canada to stick it, and then continued to deal with Mexico without Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau involved.  However, the move proved to be brilliant when later Canada begged to be involved after all.  The result?  A ground-breaking agreement with all three North American countries involved that reforms what NAFTA claimed it originally aimed at.

The new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and provides for aiding farmers by curbing Canada’s high tariffs and low quotas on U.S. dairy products, it provides a platform for reinvigorating U.S. car manufacturing, and it eases the burden on sick Americans who fund drug development by paying full price for patented drugs. Both Canada and Mexico have agreed to respect drug patents on biologic drugs—the most promising field of new cures—for a period of 10 years, which means Americans won’t be the only ones from whom drug companies can recover expenses.

The victory for the Trump administration comes on the heels of a long list of successes during the first half of his presidency, but this one is even more so a non-partisan win, when you consider how unpopular NAFTA has been when it comes to surveys which show that a plurality of Americans agree that we should leave the old NAFTA agreement.  Only one in three saw NAFTA as being beneficial to U.S. interests.

In short, Trump took a deal that gave all of the advantages to our trade partners, and had originally hurt our side of the bargain, and he restructured it to be more fair and more durable.  And, it all began with Trump’s threat of tariffs, of which the opposition whined would only create trade wars.
In other words, the tariffs were simply negotiation tools used by the Great Negotiator to set up the environment that would lead to the USMCA.
A key aspect of the new deal that I am very happy about is how the USMCA establishes a model for other trade agreements with other countries while also protecting U.S. digital services and intellectual property in ways that no prior agreement had been able to.  In particular, this is important when it comes to any future agreements we may create with Europe, and with China.  We are already making headway, by the way, for a new deal with Japan, as well.
The tools for Making America Great Again must extend beyond our borders.  As Trump reminded us in his U.N. speech a week ago, we are a part of a global community and cooperating with our neighbors is important, but not to the detriment of our sovereignty and individual needs as a country.  President Trump has shown his prowess in protecting American interests, and ensuring that he can not only defend American interests, but that he realizes we are a part of a community of countries.
The great thing about this deal is that it is good for all Americans.  All of us will benefit when it comes to the influence on prices, and the availability of products.
The stage is also set for other trade battlefields on the horizon, be they with China, Europe, or Japan.  The USMCA deal, and the recent agreements with South Korea, have created a standard that should make the other trade deals fall into place beautifully which will likely also help when it comes to our long-running trade deficit.

To borrow from Obama’s negative attacks, it looks like Trump’s economic magic wand has struck again.

As for the liberal left socialists of the Democrat Party, to the nervous wheelers and dealers in the Wall Street Casino or the “free trade” experts in Washington, I have to ask one simple question in answer to their unwillingness to accept reality, or give Trump credit for his great breakthroughs in the world of economics and trade.  What part of the booming economy do you disagree with?  With these deals he’s negotiating, the booming economy will rise higher, and last longer, thanks to the Great Negotiator’s ability to get the players of the world to play fair.  In the end, it can only be good for America.
And that’s why there will be no Blue Wave this November, and Donald J. Trump will win reelection in 2020 by a massive landslide rivaled only by George Washington’s and Ronald Reagan’s second term electoral win numbers.
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