This is from an Economist interview with Donald Trump:
It sounds like you’re imagining a pretty big renegotiation of NAFTA. What would a fair NAFTA look like?
Big isn’t a good enough word. Massive.Huge?
It’s got to be. It’s got to be.What would it look like? What would a fair NAFTA look like?
No, it’s gotta be. Otherwise we're terminating NAFTA.What would a fair NAFTA look like?
I was all set to terminate, you know? And this wasn’t like…this wasn’t a game I was playing. I’m not playing…you know, I wasn’t playing chess or poker or anything else. This was, I was, I’d never even thought about…it’s always the best when you really feel this way. But I was…I had no thought of anything else, and these two guys will tell you, I had no thought of anything else but termination. But because of my relationship with both of them, I said, I would like to give that a try too, that’s fine. I mean, out of respect for them. It would’ve been very disrespectful to Mexico and Canada had I said, “I will not.”But Mr President, what has to change for you not to withdraw?
We have to be able to make fair deals. Right now the United States has a 70—almost a $70bn trade deficit with Mexico. And it has about a $15bn dollar trade deficit with Canada. The timber coming in from Canada, they’ve been negotiating for 35 years. And it’s been…it’s been terrible for the United States. You know, it’s just, it’s just been terrible. They’ve never been able to make it.Does that $70bn deficit have to come to zero to be fair?
Not necessarily. And certainly it can come over a, you know, fairly extended period of time, because I’m not looking to shock the system. But it has to become at least fair. And no, it doesn’t have to immediately go to zero. But at some point would like to get it at zero, where sometimes we can be up and sometimes they can be up.You’ve talked about reciprocal taxes. Do you imagine that with lots of countries on lots of products or is that a negotiating tool?
No, I think it can be conceivably with lots of countries. The thing that’s bad about the hundred days is, I said the other day, I said, “When do we start this negotiation?” They said, “Sir, it hasn’t kicked in yet” because it goes with [Robert] Lighthizer, who’s our, you know, our representative, who I think is going to do a very good job. I said, “You must be kidding.” So it’s a real deficit. Now that’s a NAFTA thing. Because everything in NAFTA is bad. That’s bad, everything’s bad. But in the case of South Korea we have a deal that was made by Hillary Clinton, it’s a horrible deal. And that is the five-year anniversary and it’s up for renegotiation and we’ve informed them that we’ll negotiate. And again, we want a fair deal. We don’t want a one-sided deal our way but we want fair deals. And if we can have fair deals our country is going to do very well.
I'm not sure what any of this means. Fortunately, we finally have someone who can clarify:
The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm Robert Lighthizer as U.S. Trade Representative, ending a 128-day process that frustrated the president and Senate Republican leaders who had hoped to move more quickly on key trade issues with a USTR in place.
Now we find out what all the Trump administration rhetoric on trade will mean in practice.
