By John F. Di Leo -
Every time the President talks about trade negotiations, it makes the news. On July 18, he mentioned – for the umpteenth time – that he might prefer to break NAFTA up into two agreements, and the press went ballistic again.
We have hundreds of major issues in United States politics – taxes, unemployment, crime, foreign policy – and people can talk comfortably about them because they are always on the collective mind. But trade is different; it’s only an issue once every generation or so. So this is an issue with tons of misconceptions, not only in the electorate, but in the business community, and particularly the press, as well.
For example, the press goes crazy at the idea of breaking up NAFTA, as if having two individual Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) would be weird. Do none of these reporters know that the USA currently has FTAs with 20 countries – yes, twenty – and there are only two multiparty agreements in the bunch?
We have individual agreements – two-party – agreements with Chile, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Peru, Panama, Colombia, Israel, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, and Morocco. They work fine.
Our only multiparty FTAs are NAFTA and DR-CAFTA, and the press acts as if that approach is the norm! Well, it isn’t, and for good reason.