US trade partners ‘fed up’ with Trump’s games and are looking to cut deals with other allies
Martin Cizmar MARTIN CIZMAR
27 JUN 2018 AT 11:34 ET
rawstory.com
As the U.S. attempt to negotiate new deals for trade, Donald Trump’s brutish negotiation style has led our closest allies to try to cut deals anywhere and everywhere except with Trump, a former United States trade representative wrote in the New York Times.
The euphemism that policymakers are using is “diversification,” but by diversifying them chiefly mean avoiding the world’ largest market. “Diversification is the polite way of saying that America’s friends and allies believe we have become an unreliable partner,” the Times says.
Our trade partners are “fed up,” and have “given up on trying to charm President Trump or persuade him that free trade is good.”
“South Korea became so frustrated as it renegotiated its six-year-old trade agreement with the United States in the spring that it became determined to turn elsewhere,” the Times writes. “South Korea’s trade minister started a ‘trade diversification’ strategy soon after the agreement was announced.” Among the examples, when the U.S. pulled out of a trade deal with Canada they cut a deal with New Zealand.
“These moves are a direct response to the Trump administration’s unreliability and unpredictability, and they are a clear sign that the administration’s trade policy priorities — renegotiating deals and punishing violations — are not working out as expected,” the Times writes.
Mutual dislike of Trump is even uniting old rivals like Mexico and China, which long competed for global industry.
Now, Mexico’s trade minister has visited China to look at how they can exert “strategic leverage,” to look at “alternatives” to the United States.
The United States will always be a major player, but the world is moving on, the Times writes.
“There is a danger… in overestimating our negotiating leverage. Trade patterns will shift as our partners look elsewhere. We have spent decades building trust with our allies. We are now squandering it,” the Times writes. |
