久久亚洲国产成人影院-久久亚洲国产的中文-久久亚洲国产高清-久久亚洲国产精品-亚洲图片偷拍自拍-亚洲图色视频

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Business
Home / Business / Macro

America First: the nemesis of free trade deals

Xinhua | Updated: 2017-08-23 11:14

WASHINGTON - "America First," the starting point of the Trump administration's trade policies, might prove to be the biggest hurdle of free trade deals yet, best epitomized by the first round of talks to renegotiate the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico kicked off negotiations to update the 23-year-old trade treaty on Aug 16, and announced an ambitiously fast-paced negotiation schedule on Sunday after five days of closed-door talks.

Although a joint statement said the three countries were "committed to an accelerated negotiation process to upgrade the agreement," trade experts viewed that it still will take time and efforts to bridge deep differences between the United States and its North American neighbors.

Freer trade or fairer trade

The renegotiation comes as a pillar of President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda, which aims to reverse America's huge trade deficit and curb the outflow of America's manufacturing jobs.

US trade representative Robert Lighthizer has said that realizing free and fair trade between the three countries is the main goal in renegotiations, however, it is obvious that the United States cares more about fair trade rather than free trade, analysts said. "We feel that NAFTA has fundamentally failed many, many Americans and needs major improvement," Lighthizer said in his opening remarks of the first round negotiation, indicating that NAFTA has encouraged many manufacturers to move to low-wage Mexico, which made at least 700,000 Americans lost their jobs.

While Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo made clear that they view the free trade deal as a success and only want to see it modernized and improved, not weighed down with unreasonable goals.

NAFTA should be modernized to "produce more trade among its participants, not less," Guajardo said.

Trade experts and economists pointed out that America's trade deficit could never be reduced by a so-called fairer trade treaty, the Trump administration insisted the issue be included in the talks.

"America First" strategy, which is seen as "Mexico second," could be counterproductive in free trade talks, said US news outlet Politico.

Upgrade or rewrite

On Wednesday, Lighthizer told the negotiators that Trump is not interested in "a mere tweaking of a few provisions, and a couple of updated chapters," revealing the US ambitions to seek an essential rewrite for the deal to change the current rules of free trade.

The trilateral trading bloc in North America, came into force on Jan. 1, 1994, has greatly benefited the region's economy and citizens by eliminating almost all the tariffs between the three countries.

Since 1994, trade volume between the United States, Mexico and Canada has more than tripled, reaching around 1.2 trillion US dollars in 2016 and forming the bloc with a combined Gross Domestic Product of about 20 trillion dollars.

To improve the deal, the three sides are discussing how to include environmental and labor standards, e-commerce and other technological developments that did not exist when NAFTA was first negotiated.

Besides, the United States demands more. Its long list, including especially reducing its trade deficits and increasing jobs, could make it difficult for the three parties to reach agreement on modernization plans.

For a successful deal, "it has to work for all parties involved.Otherwise, it is not a deal," said Guajardo.

Protectionism harmful to US economy

Worried that the "America First" strategy might derail current trade flows, the US business community has warned that the Trump administration should "do no harm."

"If they go off in a sharply protectionist direction, it will upset the global apple-cart and could backfire and hurt US economic interests," said C Fred Bergsten, director emeritus of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank based in Washington DC.

Apart from the renegotiation of NAFTA, the Trump administration also planned to revamp the bilateral trade deal with South Korea, and launched investigations into China's intellectual property practices.

The underlying mindset of "America First" might render all these trade initiatives fruitless, Bergsten said.

Trade experts, however, largely doubted the three countries' plan to wrap up talks by early next year.

"Because the agenda of the negotiations is so extensive, so comprehensive, it will be very difficult for the three countries to come together on agreement on this entire agenda of issues in the next few months," said Jeffrey Schott, a renowned US trade expert.

Most Viewed in 24 Hours
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
 
主站蜘蛛池模板: 日本乱人伦在线观看免费 | a毛片在线播放 | 亚洲精品一区二区在线观看 | 久久99久久精品国产99热 | 国产浮力第一页草草影院 | 亚洲国产日韩女人aaaaaa毛片在线 | 韩国一级做a爰片性色毛片 韩国一区在线 | 91精品成人免费国产 | 日本免费的一级绿象 | 亚洲成人免费视频 | 一区二区三区高清视频在线观看 | 91chinesevideo在线观看 | 男人的天堂高清在线观看 | 免费黄网大全 | 久久羞羞| 成人男女视频 | 中国美女牲交一级毛片 | 欧美一级片播放 | 成年免费观看 | 国产精品成人亚洲 | a毛片久久免费观看 | 91人成亚洲高清在线观看 | 日本69色视频在线观看 | 欧美一级日韩在线观看 | 亚洲精品国产啊女成拍色拍 | 高清一级片 | 国产精品久久久久久久人热 | 亚洲国产视频网 | 亚洲欧美日韩久久一区 | 国产毛片一级国语版 | 一级a俄罗斯毛片免费 | 日韩免费一区二区三区在线 | 又黄又爽又刺激的视频 | 美女拍拍拍爽爽爽爽爽爽 | 精品一区二区三区免费观看 | 欧美人一级淫片a免费播放 欧美人与z0z0xxxx | 俄罗斯aaaa一级毛片 | 亚洲天堂在线视频播放 | a级男女性高爱潮高清试 | 亚洲人成在线播放网站岛国 | 亚洲日本韩国在线 |