GOP senator relieved Trump didn’t mention NAFTA

Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said he was glad that President Trump didn’t ratchet up a brewing trade fight with Canada or Mexico by mentioning the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during his State of the Union speech.

Trump in his Tuesday address glossed over trade, a sore point between him and fellow Republicans in Congress, even though negotiators recently held another round of important trade talks in Montreal.

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Trump didn’t specifically mention NAFTA, but instead declared “the era of economic surrender is over.”

“We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones,” he said. “And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property through strong enforcement of our trade rules.”

Senate Republicans who met with Trump recently to urge him to proceed carefully in NAFTA talks were glad he didn’t make any specific threats to pull out of the landmark 1994 trade deal.

“He didn’t go into detail, obviously didn’t mention NAFTA,” Roberts observed after the speech. “I’m very happy he didn’t get into that mud.”

Roberts along with several other Senate Republicans met with Trump at the White House earlier this year to warn that renegotiating NAFTA could have a major impact on farmers.

A sixth round of trade talks among the United States, Canada and Mexico over how to revamp NAFTA concluded Monday in Montreal without a breakthrough.

Trade analysts had warned before the negotiations that the Trump administration might use them to warn that the United States was on the cusp of pulling out of the agreement.

One of Trump’s first actions after taking the oath of office a year ago was to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have been the biggest trade accord in U.S. history.

Roberts noted that trade didn’t get much attention in Trump’s speech, possibly a sign that he’s willing to let the negotiations proceed further before deciding to make a precipitous move.

“I don’t think that was the featured issue. Almost everybody in the gallery up there was living proof of law enforcement [and] protecting America is the first obligation of your government,” he said. 

Trump’s lack of any mention of NAFTA drew criticism from some trade experts, however.

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a liberal-leaning group, said Trump has failed to deliver on his campaign promises to revamp trade deals.

“The sixth round of beleaguered NAFTA renegotiations just ended in Montreal, but the speech provided no clue to how Trump might deliver on his pledge to redo NAFTA to benefit working people,” she said.