The Trump Administration wants to bring down the U.S. trade deficit. [Brad W. Setser | October 27, 2017 | CFR.Org] A number of manufacturing-heavy Asian economies run sizable current account surpluses. Over the course of the summer, some of them were clearly intervening to keep their currencies from rising against the dollar. But, somewhat surprisingly,…
The U.S. is “not in a position to offer anything in return” to Mexico and Canada in the NAFTA renegotiation talks, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday – calling the U.S. approach a “tough sell.” [Daily News | October 26, 2017 | Inside US Trade] In brief remarks on CNBC, Ross was asked about the…
Last week China’s President Xi Jinping gave a 3 ½ hour speech at China’s Communist Party Congress. While some American commentators say China is becoming more like the west, Xi declared, on the contrary, that China is rising quickly to world superpower status, capable of challenging the US economically, politically, and, by 2050 militarily, too.…
President Trump told Republican senators in private on Tuesday he believes the U.S. must trigger a withdrawal from NAFTA to move Canada and Mexico to negotiate more seriously, adding that they should “trust” him to get a better deal, multiple senators told Inside U.S. Trade. [Jenny Leonard | October 25, 2017 | Inside US Trade] “The…
The Coalition for a Prosperous is proud to announce the publication of Rebuild Manufacturing – the key to American Prosperity by Michele Nash-Hoff, Chair of our California chapter. Michele is President of ElectroFab Sales and has been a CPA member since 2011. Michele has participated in producing five manufacturing summits in California since 2013 as…
Outrage over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the outsourcing of American jobs fueled the populist uprising that swept Donald Trump to victory in 2016. [Curtis Ellis | October 22, 2017 | Breitbart] Now, NAFTA is poised to be a central issue in the 2018 midterm elections, providing lethal ammunition for the populist-nationalist…
“I had always been told that unskilled jobs moved abroad. Yet Shannon’s job was complicated. It had taken her years to master. Could I do what she did? I honestly wasn’t sure. [Farah Stockman | October 23, 2017 | New York Times] I had always been told that automation, not trade, was the reason factory workers…
Selling all-American ladders from an apple-pie-and-opioids town in the Rust Belt This has been a big month for “Buy American”: last week the slogan was used to bludgeon a cheeky Canadian aircraft maker, Bombardier, the pride of Quebec, into donating control of its C Series jet business to Airbus. [ Nick Hagen | October 23, 2017…
by Michael Stumo, CEO of CPA We have never seen this before. The US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, is being brutally direct with free trade zombies in Congress and the multinational import lobby – i.e. the swamp – in charting a new pro-American direction on trade. Voters sought a change in trade policy when electing…
By Jeff Ferry, CPA Research Director Three rounds of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations came and went without much fanfare. But the fourth round, held in early October, included strong Trump administration proposals which start to fulfill promises to get tough on trade. Mexico and Canada complained about the proposals. The NAFTA negotiations…
