President Donald Trump scored a significant win on Monday with a newly-neogiated trade pact with both Canada and Mexico, thus giving him something to grossly exaggerate during the upcoming mid-term elections.
So far as we can tell from the mainstream media accounts, Trump now has a very plausible case to grossly exaggerate in his characteristic way. Although NAFTA remains mainly intact, Trump has won the concession that it’s now called the “United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” or the more cumbersome “USMCA,” and we’re relieved that he didn’t insist on “Trump” in the name,and we can’t deny the latest negotiations include some sweet deals for Wisconsin’s dairy framers and some likely raises in pay for Mexico’s automotive assembly line workers, and we can’t deny that on the whole it’s a pretty good deal.
Still, we’re suspicious that it’s really the greatest deal anybody’s ever seen, as Trump is already proclaiming, and we’ll watch how it plays out in those mid-term elections. We’re glad for those Wisconsin dairy farmers who were previously and unfairly denied market access to those damnably protectionist Canadians, and we’re glad for those Mexican assembly line workers who will probably be getting a raise soon, but we doubt the latest periodic re-ngotiations of the still largely extant NAFT treaty represent the difference between the worst deal America ever made and the greatest deal ever that even trump could Trump could only negotiate. Here in Kansas the grain farmers are still anxious about Trump’s ongoing trade war with Chinaand so are the local aviation workers. we’d advise Trump that he shouldn’t get tired of winning just yet.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 