{"id":253184,"date":"2025-03-06T15:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T15:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/06\/trump-shifts-from-lifting-up-americas-neighbors-to-hurting-them\/"},"modified":"2025-03-06T15:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T15:27:09","slug":"trump-shifts-from-lifting-up-americas-neighbors-to-hurting-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/06\/trump-shifts-from-lifting-up-americas-neighbors-to-hurting-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Shifts From Lifting Up America\u2019s Neighbors to Hurting Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/05\/multimedia\/00dc-usmca-01-fmzb\/00dc-usmca-01-fmzb-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Trump Shifts From Lifting Up America\u2019s Neighbors to Hurting Them\" title=\"Trump Shifts From Lifting Up America\u2019s Neighbors to Hurting Them\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When the United States signed a free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico more than 30 years ago, the premise was that partnering with two other thriving economies would also benefit America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This week, President Trump abruptly scrapped that idea. He imposed a sweeping 25 percent tariff on the roughly $1 trillion of imports that Mexico and Canada send into the United States each year as part of that North American trade pact. Those tariffs are expected to significantly raise costs for Canadian and Mexican exports, undermining their economies and likely tipping them into recession.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump\u2019s decision to unwind <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/01\/us\/politics\/trumps-tariffs-us-mexico.html\" title=\"\">decades of economic integration<\/a> raises big questions about the future of North America and the industries that have been built around the idea of an economically integrated continent. While some factories in Canada and Mexico might move to the United States to avoid tariffs, the levies will also raise costs for American consumers and manufacturers that have come to depend on materials from their North American neighbors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is a day where the United States stopped seeing trade as force for mutual benefit, and began seeing it as a tool of economic warfare,\u201d said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He added that the levies were \u201ca fundamental attack on the economic well being of our closest neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump suggested on Wednesday that this arrangement could be long-lived, as he gave automakers who were abiding by the terms of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or U.S.M.C.A., only a one month reprieve to prepare for the tariffs. Trump officials said that the president expected to issue more tariffs on Canada and Mexico next month, when he announces what he is calling <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/13\/us\/politics\/trump-tariffs.html\" title=\"\">\u201creciprocal\u201d tariff measures<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump defended his tariffs in an address to Congress Tuesday night, saying they were \u201cnot just about protecting American jobs \u2014 they are about protecting the soul of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again, and it is happening and it will happen rather quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cThere will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that. It won\u2019t be much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Economists argue that the tariffs could cause major disruptions in Canada and Mexico, because they are so reliant on the U.S. economy. Trade accounts for about a quarter of U.S. economic activity, compared with roughly 70 percent for Mexico and Canada. Canada and Mexico both send about 80 percent of their exports to the United States, while only about a third of U.S. exports go to Canada and Mexico collectively.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tony Stillo, director of Canada economics at Oxford Economics, estimated that the tariffs would plunge the Canadian economy into a recession this year, push consumer price inflation to nearly 4 percent above the previous year and cause layoffs that would lift the unemployment rate above 8 percent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTrump\u2019s trade war will seriously hamper U.S.-Canada relations and severely upend North America\u2019s highly integrated production and supply network, possibly with lasting impacts on both economies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Marcus Noland, executive vice president and director of studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/21\/world\/canada\/trumps-tariffs-us-canada-mexico.html#link-5c76902\" title=\"\">estimated<\/a> that a 25 percent tariff could reduce Mexico\u2019s economic growth about two percentage points, potentially resulting in large-scale factory closures and job losses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The tariff threats have already convinced some companies to look beyond Mexico.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Randy Carr, the chief executive of World Emblem, which manufactures labels and emblems, including for U.S. military uniforms, FedEx drivers and the National Football League players, said the tariffs had given him a push to set up a secondary factory in the Dominican Republic, in addition to a factory in Mexico.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Carr said that he would consider bringing manufacturing to the United States if the tariffs stayed in place, but that it would take time and significantly raise the cost of his products. But the threats have also caused him to rethink his plans for the next three years, and pull back on all spending on expansions and hiring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe\u2019re sitting on a lot of a lot of projects that we can\u2019t otherwise do as a result of just the threat of the tariff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As a bigger economy, the United States is more insulated to trade than Canada and Mexico. But slowing America\u2019s biggest export markets will hurt U.S. growth, too, and it will cause more acute pain among communities that depend on those markets. Canada and Mexico are the biggest export markets for many American farmers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">U.S. industries that depend on raw materials from the neighboring countries will also see costs rise, and some of those businesses could shut down as tariffs erase their profit margins. Analysts at S&amp;P Global Ratings said on Thursday they expected the tariffs to decrease U.S. gross domestic product 0.6 percent over the next 12 months, and Canadian and Mexico G.D.P. 2 to 3 percent from their previous forecasts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The tariffs also effectively shatter a trade deal Mr. Trump himself signed in his first term. When he signed that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/29\/business\/economy\/usmca-trump.html\" title=\"\">trade deal in 2020<\/a>, Mr. Trump called it the \u201clargest, fairest, most balanced and modern trade agreement ever achieved\u201d and a \u201ccolossal victory\u201d for farmers and factory workers. Supporters of the pact say that Mr. Trump\u2019s willingness to disregard it will clamp down on company investments \u2014 and turn some of the substantial investments they previously made under the pact into losses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Wednesday, America\u2019s major automakers issued statements thanking the president for the one-month pause in tariffs. But on a conference call Tuesday, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/05\/us\/politics\/trump-lutnick-tariffs-reduction-canada-mexico.html\" title=\"\">they had told<\/a> Mr. Trump that putting tariffs on cars and parts from Canada and Mexico would effectively erase all of their companies\u2019 profits by imposing billions of dollars of new costs, according to a person briefed on the call.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The tariffs have also decimated any trust between the governments involved. In response to U.S. requests, Canada tightened its visa rules and deployed personnel, equipment, helicopters and drones along the border. Mexico <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/04\/us\/politics\/mexico-trump-tariffs-security-drug-cartels-fentanyl.html\" title=\"\">sent troops to the border<\/a> and cracked down on drug cartels, including delivering cartel operatives into U.S. custody.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Border crossings <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/03\/world\/americas\/mexico-border-migration-trump-tariffs-deadline.html\" title=\"\">plummeted<\/a>. In the end, none of that mattered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said in a news conference on Tuesday that Mr. Trump\u2019s rationale for the tariffs was \u201ccompletely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false.\u201d Mr. Trudeau said he had to assume that what Mr. Trump really wanted was \u201ca total collapse of the Canadian economy\u201d to accomplish an objective the president had talked about repeatedly: annexing Canada.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But, he said, those moves would also drag down the U.S. economy. \u201cA fight with Canada will have no winners,\u201d Mr. Trudeau said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some groups had supported Mr. Trump\u2019s tariffs precisely because they wanted to unwind economic integration. The United Auto Workers, which represents mostly American workers, said in a statement that it had seen \u201cthe devastating effects of so-called free trade on the working class\u201d for 40 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class,\u201d the union said. \u201cThe working class suffered all the pain of Nafta, and we won\u2019t suffer all the pain of undoing Nafta.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But other industries have complained that severing those ties will backfire on Mr. Trump\u2019s aims by hurting American manufacturing and destroying jobs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The National Council of Textile Organizations, a trade group representing U.S. textile makers that argues for stricter restrictions on imports from China, said that imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico would \u201cbenefit China and other Asian countries and harm the U.S. textile industry, which has lost 27 plants in the past 20 months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">U.S. textile makers ship more than half of their total global textile exports to Mexico and Canada, and those materials often come back as finished products to the United States under the U.S.M.C.A. Destabilizing this North American production chain would \u201conly exacerbate migration and the fentanyl crisis,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A North American trade agreement was a controversial concept when negotiations began in the 1990s. The United States and Canada already had a free-trade pact, but neither country had signed a deal with a poorer nation like Mexico.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Supporters believed the agreement would boost Mexico\u2019s economic growth, providing a destination for investment and a market for U.S. exports, while also helping to discourage illegal immigration. Critics said it would steal U.S. manufacturing jobs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Gordon Hanson, an economist at the Harvard Kennedy School who has studied the impact of Nafta and was working in Mexico when it was drafted, said its creators were right that the deal would create efficient industries. But they were wrong about it benefiting lower-income workers, he said, either non-college educated workers in the United States, or those in Mexico\u2019s poorer, less industrialized south.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Overall, economic studies <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/sgp.fas.org\/crs\/row\/R42965.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">indicate<\/a> that Nafta expanded the U.S. economy. But it created losers as well as winners. Many of those on the losing end felt betrayed by a Democratic Party that fought for free trade agreements rather than blue-collar workers, and ultimately ended up backing Mr. Trump and his trade policies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Hanson said Nafta was \u201cvery disruptive in textile industries and some other labor-intensive sectors,\u201d like parts of automobile manufacturing, and led to job losses in those sectors. \u201cThe political ramifications of it were probably as big or bigger than the economic ones,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ironically, Mr. Hanson said that Mr. Trump\u2019s efforts to unwind free trade agreements could cause the kind of economic dislocations those agreements caused in the first place, as they destroyed and then recreated new supply chains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even if manufacturing jobs end up increasing overall in the United States, he said, certain factories might shut down because they depend on supply chains that run through Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere is going to be significant disruption to regional economies,\u201d he said. \u201cI would worry about the places that are going to be disrupted by this and the long-lived adverse impact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Jack Ewing<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/06\/us\/politics\/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-us.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the United States signed a free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico more than 30 years ago, the premise was that partnering with two other thriving economies would also benefit America. This week, President Trump abruptly scrapped that idea. He imposed a sweeping 25 percent tariff on the roughly $1 trillion of imports that Mexico [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/05\/multimedia\/00dc-usmca-01-fmzb\/00dc-usmca-01-fmzb-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11226,165435,171453,32718,3096,164053,46277,139839,164052,15936,65572,52,166932,163486,173765],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253186,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253184\/revisions\/253186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}