Trump Sends Nafta Renegotiation Notice to Congress -
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVISMAY 18, 2017
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration gave Congress official notice on Thursday
that it plans to renegotiate Nafta, but provided only the vaguest of hints about modest changes President Trump would seek to an agreement that he has called “the worst trade deal ever.”
In a brief letter to lawmakers, Robert Lighthizer, the newly confirmed United States trade representative, said the administration aimed to support better-paying jobs
and economic growth through unspecified improvements to Nafta that would modernize the 23-year-old agreement.
“For years, politicians have called for the renegotiation of this agreement, but President Trump is the first to follow through with that promise.”
The move was met with skepticism by organizations that have long pressed for major changes to Nafta and have argued
that Mr. Trump had already fallen short of his promises on trade.
“One hundred and nineteen days later, he has managed to send Congress a two-page letter
that fails to include any real plan to fix a deal that has undermined environmental protections, eliminated jobs, undercut wages, polluted our air and water, and fueled climate change.”
The page-long letter stood in stark contrast to an eight-page version circulated on Capitol Hill in March, which proposed
adding a provision to allow tariffs to be reinstated if a flood of imports threatened to harm a domestic industry.
But the notice — a drastically scaled-back version of a draft the administration circulated this
year — promised no major modifications of the sort that the president has hinted he will seek.