Vehicles wait to enter the United States at the Canadian Thousand Islands Bridge Authority in Kingston, Canada, Aug. 16, 2017. The United States, Canada and Mexico on Wednesday kicked off the first round of renegotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) amid widespread uncertainty and anxiety over the future of the decades-old trilateral trade deal. (Xinhua/Li Baodong)
by Xinhua writer Li Ming
NEW YORK, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- As the renegotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is underway in Washington D.C., other U.S. trade partners are also watching it closely, which might be a template for the U.S. government's future trade talks.
NAFTA renegotiation "could be the starting point for negotiations of other countries," Alan Deardorff, professor of international economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, told Xinhua.
There may be a whole bunch of new issues introduced into the trade agreement, he said.
According to U.S. Trade Representative Office, the NAFTA renegotiation aims to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and includes new content, such as the digital economy, and labor and environmental obligations in the 23-year-old trade pact among the Unites States, Canada and Mexico.
It's the first time that the office has included the deficit reduction as a specific objective for NAFTA, reflecting U.S. President Donald Trump's long-time belief that the bilateral deficit is a sign of a broken trade pact, which many economists see as groundless.
"Trade deficits are not the result of trade agreements, not the result of trade barriers at home or abroad," Deardorff said, explaining that the situation stems simply from spending versus income in a country.
The U.S. trade deficit is "a very direct reflection that we spend far far more than our income, we have to buy abroad because we are buying more things than we produce," he added.
Statistics show that the United States currently runs trade deficits with nine of its 10 top trading partners. Last year, it saw a trade deficit of 728 billion U.S. dollars, including 146 billion with the European Union, 63 billion with Mexico. and 27.7 billion with South Korea, one of the 20 countries that have free trade agreements (FTAs) with it.
Famous for his tough in trade rhetoric, Trump has vowed to withdraw or amend any trade agreement that he thinks are widening the U.S. trade deficit and hurting U.S. manufacturing.
Describing the U.S.-South Korean FTA as a "horrible deal", Trump has called for a renegotiation of the five-year-old pact to narrow the trade deficit. In mid July, South Korea accepted a U.S. request to convene a special session of the joint committee on their bilateral agreement.
"I do think the NAFTA renegotiation will set certain limits for a renegotiation with South Korea," said Justin Fendos, professor at Dongseo University in South Korea and the associate director of the Tan School at Fudan University, in an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday.
Fendos believed "Trump is probably the only one who is really pushing for a renegotiation" of NAFTA, which has actually benefited many of Trump's supporters in rural America such as farmers and ranchers.
He anticipated that the renegotiation will only bring about "superficial changes to the current terms, something Trump can tote as a victory publicly."
In that case, the South Korea renegotiation will not be very significant either since the superficial nature of the NAFTA renegotiation will signal a lack of political will, he said.
Other experts hold a more pessimistic view, believing Trump's protectionist stance may harm the already fragile international trade architecture.
"It is certainly true that several decades of post-WWII multilateral trade negotiations have come to a stop ... and there is a trend in the developed world, certainly here (in the United States) and in Europe, questioning globalization, fearing trade, fearing international capital flows, fearing multinational companies," said Deardorff.
He described the trend as "very worrisome", urging other countries to continue to promote globalization and free trade even without the United States as a leader.
"It is in their interest if they really understand that and it would be in our interest too," he said.
