[BeauBo]

Sounds like NAFTA is on the way out.

In NAFTA, the US is one of three, like any other. In bilateral agreements, the US is the overwhelmingly more powerful.

The biggest problem with NAFTA, is that Mexico and Canada exploit it to take a small cut for letting China and others avoid US controls to dump their products into the US market. Free money for them; while US industries, workers and tax revenues bear all the burdens.

[HamiltonJay]

And that is exactly Trump’s goal... independent bilateral agreements with Mexico and Canada... as it should be...

These multinational all encompassing trade agreements are probably the biggest failure of the later half of the 20th century.

Where trade could have been used to improve the human condition, by requiring nations to improve themselves in order to greater and greater access consumer markets, they squandered it by these agreements that basically let foreign bureaucrats decide who could and could not enter our markets openly and unfettered.

[LeeClementineKenny]

Trump has no choice but to leave NAFTA because Canada and Mexico have refused to make any concessions during these negotiations. They need to be told they can either immediately drop the tariffs they imposed on us recently, and start negotiating in good faith, or we will immediately leave NAFTA and impose additional tariffs on them.

We can destroy them in a trade war even if it hurts us some temporarily. We will come out of it in a lot better shape, and it doesn't look like we have any choice since these countries refuse to work with us.