U.S. Chamber Warns Ditching NAFTA Would Hurt Nation’s Economy

March 30--As President Trump prepares to move forward with his trade agenda, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's international policy director warns that tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement would be bad for the U.S. economy.

"As for Pennsylvania, Canada is by far your largest export market and Mexico is your No. 2. I hate to break it to you, but NAFTA is one of the reasons for that," Christopher Wenk told the Tribune-Review.

Canada and Mexico represent the top two or three export markets for 35 states, Wenk said.

Reuters reported that Trump is close to issuing at least two trade-related executive orders, including one that would call for a review of the United States' 14 existing free trade agreements, NAFTA among them.

Trump has described NAFTA as a "disaster" for American workers and vowed throughout his campaign to renegotiate the trade deal if president, arguing that it shifted manufacturing production and factory jobs to Mexico and elsewhere.

In his fourth day in office, he issued a memorandum withdrawing the United States from negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, another multi-nation deal that Trump said would hurt American workers.

Wenk pointed to studies showing that automation and improved manufacturing efficiency have played far bigger roles than NAFTA in declining manufacturing employment. But the chamber is open to discussing possible changes to the trade deal, he said.

"It's always a good thing to look under the hood. The business challenges today are very different than they were when NAFTA was negotiated," Wenk said, noting e-commerce didn't exist in 1993.

But Wenk said it's important to "maintain what we have here," noting that billions of dollars in trade occurs daily among the United States, Canada and Mexico, much of it done by small to medium-sized companies. Millions of jobs are supported by that trade activity, he said.

More broadly, the 20 foreign countries involved in the United States' 14 existing trade agreements accepted 45 percent of American exports. In Asia, however, our trade market share has declined over the past decade "because of the proliferation of trade agreements that do not involve the United States," Wenk said.

"The world is moving forward on trade whether or not the United States participates," Wenk said. "From our perspective, you can't get on and off the global economy train. You need to stay on it."

Tom Fontaine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7847 or tfontaine@tribweb.com.

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