Republicans Pose Growing Challenge to Trumps Trade Agenda
WASHINGTON—Republican lawmakers are showing increasing resistance to President Donald Trump’s trade agenda, worried that his plans could hurt exports from their states and undermine longstanding U.S. alliances.
The concerns indicate that the biggest threat to Mr. Trump’s trade policy—which emphasizes new bilateral deals and a tougher stance against countries blamed for violating trade rules—is coming from his own party. The opposition from Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, stands to complicate Mr. Trump’s efforts to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, and tackle alleged trade violations in China.
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While many Democrats in Congress are interested in working with the Trump administration on trade, Republicans who have long backed free trade—many of them close to business groups—are warning that imposing tariffs could lead to retaliation against U.S. goods. Lawmakers from farm states are upset that Mr. Trump in January pulled out of the unratified Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, the 12-nation trade agreement that Barack Obama negotiated.
“I’m more concerned about what they might do renegotiating existing agreements than what they do bilaterally with countries they don’t have agreements with,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), a member of the committee that oversees trade. “We know what we have, and I guess I don’t think it’s as bad as what the president thinks it is,” he said, citing Nafta, which opened markets for farm exports.
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My concern is that they’re making it too difficult to enter into trade agreements,” said Sen. Cory Gardner (R., Colo.). “I’m concerned that when we remove ourselves from the playing field of multilateral opportunities, our trading partners will look elsewhere for leadership—and that leadership can come from countries that don’t follow the same norms and values that we do,” he added, alluding to China’s attempts to fill the void in Asia following the U.S. withdrawal from the TPP.
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Mr. Trump’s pledge to renegotiate Nafta is expected to provide an early test of congressional support for his policies. U.S. lawmakers took note when a Mexican lawmaker introduced legislation favoring Latin American products over American-exported corn, a key winner in Nafta. That move followed warnings from Mr. Trump that Nafta would be renegotiated and Mexico would have to pay for a new border wall.
“I have been worried because other countries have pushed back: ‘You want us to build a wall, well we’re not going to take your corn,’” said Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican. “If we’re talking about renegotiating Nafta, we actually stand to lose ground in agriculture—so we would really have to work that very, very carefully.”
More..
https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-pose-growing-challenge-to-trumps-trade-agenda-1489337570
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These farmers should have thought about it on elections day..
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