Rona Ambrose lauds Canada-US trade advantage over Mexico

John Weber, a hog producer from Dysart who is president of the National Pork Producers Council, is concerned about efforts to reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Commerce Department further reported that these exports supported more than 3 million American jobs and that us exports, in total, support more than 11.5 million American jobs. Mexican auto workers still earn less than $10 an hour, allowing manufacturers to keep small vehicle prices low-and affordable to US families on a budget.

A flood of NAFTA-inspired foreign investment has helped turn Monterrey into Mexico’s Free Trade capital, lifting tens of thousands of workers into the middle class and making this city’s mighty industrialist families even richer.

Take the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Indeed, NAFTA opponents note that the official United States jobless number, which hovers around the 5 percent mark, is an artificial number, as it only considers those who are actively seeking work.

But the U.S. gets plenty from the goods it imports from Mexico. NAFTA is 23 years old and has more than doubled U.S.ag exports to Mexico and Canada. “Any trade agreement that encourages companies to offshore jobs to other countries should be rejected”. Nor is it evident what specific changes the administration might seek to NAFTA; Wilbur Ross, Trump’s pick for Commerce secretary, says only that “NAFTA issues of concern include rules for country of origin, dispute resolution mechanisms, and simultaneity of concessions”. Australia does. Yet China is the US’s largest trade partner.

Free-trade agreements, wherever they are proposed, are nearly always controversial.

Social instability would increase as the unemployment rate in the Mexican states would rise due to a significant dependence on auto production, while inflation would move higher due to a MXN depreciation versus the dollar at rates reminiscent of the 50% depreciation versus the dollar when the MXN-USD peg collapsed at end-1994.

“There is also the opportunity for the TPP to proceed without the United States”, Turnbull told reporters in Canberra.

Trump met with Ford CEO Mark Fields, General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne on Tuesday to push his calls for more job creation in the US and to offer the prospect of less regulation, which could help drive industry profits.

“The Americans may be our best friends, but they’re also our biggest competitors”.

The withdrawal will have immediate effects on USA economic policies, and it indicates how trade will differ under the Trump administration, according to CNN. The cheaper Mexican labor at the final assembly stage brought the total price of many goods down while still assuring that at least some of their value came from the United States.

The big thing is that NAFTA looks to be in jeopardy.

In November, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Lima, where he promoted the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), an alternative to the TPP which is now being negotiated by 16 states in East Asia and Australasia.

NAFTA’s impact on the economy was more modest than partisans on either side of the debate had expected.

TPP decision disappointingIowa ag leaders are disappointed that negotiations spanning years on the TPP agreement are being abandoned by the U.S.

Although NAFTA and other trade agreements have caused the loss of American jobs, there are also stories of American jobs that have been saved or gained.

Let’s hope that Trump is only using his anti-trade rhetoric as a negotiating tool and that the typically pro-trade Republicans in Congress can block his protectionist excesses. “Actually, America wanted to write new rules of global economic relations”.

“It also, of course, would reduce the cost of compliance, and that’s really important for Australian small to medium enterprises, who want lower barriers to trade”, he said. The BBC describes the deal as a remarkable achievement given the very different approaches and standards within the member countries for environmental protection, workers’ rights and regulatory coherence.

Meanwhile, updates to the White House website indicate Trump’s people have removed Obama’s “Climate Change” section and replaced it with “America First Energy Plan”, indicating Trumps intention to focus on developing coal, oil and other energy streams here in the United States.