FOR YEARS President Donald Trump has been itching to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trade deal between America, Canada and Mexico. But as long as negotiations about a revamp continued, he held off. The day after signing a new deal on November 30th, rebranded the USMCA, he announced that he would “shortly” indulge himself and terminate the original deal after all. That would force Congress to choose between the USMCA and a NAFTA-less world.
“If Trump’s new NAFTAis so great, why does he need to resort to brinkmanship to ram it through Congress?” asked Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator. The answer is that many do not think the new deal is so great. The AFL-CIO, a union of unions, calls it incomplete. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in Congress and probably the next speaker, says it is a “work in progress”. Some Republicans express misgivings. Mr Trump wants to silence such voices.
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