Trump Corners Democrats With Threat To Kill NAFTA: ‘It Is Going To Force Congress To Act’

The congress that keeps kicking the can down the road.

Via Washington Times:

Democratic congressional leaders are loath to acknowledge it, but President Trump has them cornered with his threat to terminate NAFTA if his new trade deal with Mexico and Canada isn’t approved.

Scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement without a replacement would deliver a heavy blow to the U.S. economy. In the short term, it would reduce real U.S. gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services — by as much as $231 billion, more than 1 percent during the first five years, according to an analysis commissioned by the Business Roundtable.

“Terminating NAFTA would have negative impacts on jobs, exports and output even after new supply chains are formed. In this longer run, we estimate that U.S. GDP would remain depressed by over 0.2 percent, permanently,” said the report for the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers from major U.S. corporations.

The impact on the U.S. GDP, about $19.3 trillion in 2017, would depend on the reactions of Mexico and Canada. Alternative scenarios in the analysis pegged the reduced annual GDP at $119 billion to $231 billion, with job losses from 1.8 million to 3.6 million in the five-year window.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican who next year will take charge of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade agreements, said the president has Congress over a barrel.

“It seems to me it is going to force Congress to act — even if you disagree with parts of it,” he said in an interview on the “Adams on Agriculture” program on the American Ag Radio Network.

“Now that is a hard-nosed approach, but sometimes a president has to use that if he wants to get things accomplished,” Mr. Grassley said.

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