Republican nominee Donald Trump said one of his top priorities for improving the U.S. economy will be to make trade deals that better serve U.S. workers.
Donald Trump blistered U.S. policy on trade in his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination Thursday night and said he would rewrite free trade deals to lower the trade deficit and bring back outsourced jobs.
“I have made billions of dollars in business making deals – now I’m going to make our country rich again. I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great ones. America has lost nearly-one third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton,” Trump said, referring in particular to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
He also criticized his Democratic opponent for supporting China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization, the South Korea free trade agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which she pulled back from during the primary campaign to blunt the populist appeal of Sen. Bernie Sanders, D.-Vt.
Trump said he will pull out of multilateral trade deals like the TPP, which is awaiting ratification by Congress, and instead, negotiate with countries one by one. It’s a prospect that Britain now faces after deciding to exit the European Union and losing its free trade block status.
“The TPP will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom and independence. Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries,” Trump proclaimed.
“No longer will we enter into these massive deals, with many countries, that are thousands of pages long – and which no one from our country even reads or understands. We are going to enforce all trade violations, including through the use of taxes and tariffs, against any country that cheats.
“This includes stopping China’s outrageous theft of intellectual property, along with their illegal product dumping, and their devastating currency manipulation. Our horrible trade agreements with China and many others, will be totally renegotiated. That includes renegotiating NAFTA to get a much better deal for America – and we’ll walk away if we don’t get the deal that we want,” Trump threatened.
The Republican presidential candidate said his policies would correct a trade deficit that is about $500 billion, according to the U.S. Census. He stated the deficit was almost $800 billion last year (actually $763 billion), but that was for goods. The U.S. trade surplus in services counterbalances the goods deficit.
Trump trumpets populist trade message in acceptance speech
