President-elect Donald Trump, selecting a China critic as U.S. Trade Representative, “will further lay out some of the exact ways” that he will pull out of TPP and seek to re-write NAFTA once he takes office, a spokesman said. The aim of these moves will be to shrink the trade deficit, expand economic growth, strengthen U.S. manufacturing and stop jobs from moving overseas, spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters.
China is the top market for U.S. farm exports. Canada and Mexico, the U.S. partners in NAFTA, are the second- and third-largest agricultural markets. Together, the three countries account for roughly 45 percent of U.S. agricultural sales to foreign buyers. Exports loom large in the U.S. farm economy, providing 20 cents of each $1 in revenue.
“Economic growth in rural America depends on maintaining and increasing access to markets outside the United States,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, in reaction to the appointment of Robert Lighthizer at U.S. Trade Representative. “We trust Mr. Lighthizer will work tirelessly to assure it.” Duvall called for removal of barriers to U.S. exports, such as high tariffs and discriminatory rules.
The National Milk Producers Federation said Canada “has at every opportunity decided to flout its dairy trade commitments to the United States” under NAFTA while Mexico has become a large customer for U.S. dairy exports. “A focus on preserving and growing what is working well, while cracking down further on what is not, will help to expand global markets for U.S. dairy farmers and the companies that turn their milk into nutritious dairy products shipped all over the world,” said NMPF chief executive Jim Mulhern.
Lighthizer was a deputy trade representative during the Reagan era and has practiced international trade law for three decades in Washington. In an announcement, the Trump team said Lighthizer would work with Commerce nominee Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro of the White House National Trade Council “to develop and implement policies that shrink our trade deficit, expand economic growth, strengthen our manufacturing base and help stop the exodus of jobs from our shores.”
When asked during a tele-confernce about Trump’s objectives in revamping NAFTA, Spicer said the team of trade experts “are going to work together to bring American jobs home. It’s what, frankly, the president-elect campaigned on, standing up to foreign cheating and standing up for American manufacturing.” Trump has said he will pull the United States out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership and either scrap or renegotiate NAFTA. “When he becomes president, he will further lay out some of the exact ways in which that’s going to occur,” said Spicer.
“So the exact policy formulation with respect to NAFTA will come in time, but just know that his commitment is to the American people and to restoring our manufacturing base and — and economic growth.”
Lighthizer is “a harsh critic of China’s trade practices,” said Reuters. “Lighthizer has argued that China has failed to live up to commitments made in 2001 when it joined the World Trade Organization and that tougher tactics are needed to change the system, even if it means deviating from World Trade Organization rules.”
The Obama administration has filed two recent WTO cases challenging Chinese farm subsidies and import tariffs as trade distorting and unfairly limiting U.S. sales to the world’s most populous nation.
The Wall Street Journal said Lighthizer “has three decades of experience arguing for punitive tariffs on overseas companies. Given Mr. Trump’s deep skepticism of trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, Mr. Lighthizer probably wouldn’t prioritize major new trade agreements, at least in the early days of the administration, according to people following Mr. Trump’s trade plans.” He was a member of the transition team that focused on USTR and was a leading candidate for the top job at the agency for some time, said the Journal.