so, what's my political wisdom on where trump stands on nafta?

i told you they didn't want to get rid of obamacare, and would fuck around for months over it. i was basing that analysis on things i had read at sites like counterpunch during the obama years, but i'm not aware of anybody else that saw what happened coming. and, i told you about the russian fiasco before it happened, too - because it was just the obvious logical corollary of the clear fact that the cia rigged the election to put trump in power. trump was an inside job! so, what about nafta?

in fact, i've already posted this here several times: "cancel the tpp and rewrite nafta" is going to, in the end, become "replace nafta with the tpp". and, you don't need to go to obscure sites or have a math degree to figure that out, it's all over the business press.

one of the selling points that obama used for the tpp is that it had environmental and labour standards, although how these would be enforced in a country like indonesia was never made clear. the precise focus of improving mexico's labour standards is a lot easier to grapple with, and consequently a lot easier to support. it's attainable. i mean, they told us that free markets would increase standards of living in mexico; that was a lie, and a malicious one, but it wasn't some fatalistic necessity - mexico should have higher living standards and doesn't due to absurd amounts of corruption. but, it's certainly created jobs, at least, and that's a precursor to use government to balance the playing field and actualize the promises that market economics has failed to deliver, and will always fail to deliver. i can support this. and, i don't know how you get mexico to let go of it's oligarchic corruption without getting threatening with it, either.

i've been saying for a long time that the way you save nafta is that you have to get tough with enforcement in mexico. they're a laggard, here. and, they're dragging the whole thing down.

the part of the tpp that was most daunting was it's strengthening of intellectual property rights, which is going to increase the price of everything at the benefit of almost nobody. this is something we're going to feel more in a country like canada, as it's going to hurt our regulatory systems that keep prices down. this is something the left needs to fight. it's going to be the focus of opposition.

but, i don't know what a cost-benefit is on this, yet. some of what i'm hearing may actually be a real improvement. is it worth supporting an agreement that levels wages out, if it increases drug prices?

i do think that the trump administration wants a "deal". but, this is different, because it has to co-ordinate with actors outside of the country. and, i'm not sure it's going to get what it wants, partly because what it wants is kind of outlandish.

there is a different government in canada now, as well. that is going to be the biggest difference between tpp negotiations and nafta renegotiation. obama was basically a republican, anyways, so he didn't disagree much with republicans on trade. trudeau is dealing with a different dynamic - he, himself, may share most of obama's views on trade, but he's dealing with a lot of opposition in his party that sees tpp and nafta style deals as a process of ending canadian sovereignty. the liberals were actually largely responsible for the auto pact, and it was actually the elder trudeau that initiated nafta discussions, but the liberals have been out of power for the actual substantive negotiations over the fta, the nafta and the tpp. they campaigned hard against nafta. so, the united states is going to find itself face-to-face with a different animal, this time around. there are prominent old veterans of the 80s battles in the party that must know this is their only chance to fix what they see as catastrophic problems - and these voices should be supported.

what i'm getting at is that canada is the wildcard here and that the outcome is going to depend on what we want, which isn't yet clear. the liberals were always confusing on trade. they never had a united voice.

but, is trump fucking around on this? no - he wants an update. and, what he's going to push is going to look a lot like the tpp.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/17/private-sector-advisory-group-suggests-nafta-rewrite-based-on-tpp.html