U.S., Canada and Mexico sign trade deal to replace NAFTA, but will Congress ratify it?

You know Trump has never liked NAFTA. It was Exhibit A of his claim that the U.S. was a serial signer of horrible trade deals, and that President Art of the Deal would be just the guy to rip them up and negotiate new ones.

There were those who thought he would never get Mexico and Canada to the table to renegotiate, especially after some of his rhetoric aimed at the leaders of both countries.

Well, he has a long way to go with his own Congress, but he got the deal. The three nations signed it at a ceremony early this morning:

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, announced with fanfare by the leaders of all three countries in late September after months of on-again, off-again negotiations, will replace the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. That agreement, known as NAFTA, essentially eliminated tariffs on most goods traded among the three countries.

Trump, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have all lauded the new pact as good for their countries’ economy and for workers. All three are expected to take part in Friday morning’s signing ceremony.

But the agreement still must be ratified by the legislative bodies of all three countries – a process that could take months and could be complicated by the Trump administration’s tariffs on aluminum and steel and by the House Democrats’ return to power in January.

Mexico is expected to go first. Mexico’s incoming president, Andres Manuel López Obrador, will take office on Saturday. The Mexican Senate is expected to ratify the trade pact quickly so the new administration can focus on its domestic agenda.

In Canada, where the agreement has been met with skepticism by dairy farmers and others, Parliament is unlikely to take up the pact until after it is ratified by the U.S. Congress.

Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is urging Trump to submit the pact for ratification now by the lame-duck Congress that’s leaving office at the end of December. That’s basically an attempt to prevent Nancy Pelosi’s new Democrat majority in the House from either dumping it or extracting ugly concessions in exchange for passing it.

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There are actually things in this deal that Democrats should like, which is why there are things in it I don’t particularly like. Central among these is a requirement that automobiles include more parts made in North America by workers being paid at least $16 an hour. We are not fans of politicians inserting themselves into things like wage negotiations. We figure employers and employees can work those things out without outside help.

Trump believes in free markets all things being equal, but he’s a results guy above all else, and if he thinks the dynamics of the market are producing insufficiently low wages, he’s not above locking in something different in a trade deal. That was one of the reasons he didn’t like NAFTA. For better or for worse, he got the wage measure he wanted in the new deal.

So will the new Congress actually ratify the deal? My guess is they will, but Trump won’t get what he wants without giving some things up.

Say all you want about Nancy Pelosi’s incoherent public statements and her goofy view of the world in general. She’s been in the House long enough that she understands legislative dealmaking every bit as well as Trump understands business dealmaking. She also understands that a lot of Trump’s prestige as president is on the line with this trade deal. It was one of his signature campaign promises, and if Congress scuttles it, he’ll be the who’s called a failure for not getting it done.

So Pelosi will demand a price. Control of the House alone won’t allow the Democrats to shove new socialist initiatives down the nation’s throat like they did in 2010 with ObamaCare. But what are some things they do want?

They want more gun control.

They want more executive-branch commitment to ObamaCare.

They want softer border security, meaning no wall among other things.

They want more environmental regulations.

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Oh, and they wouldn’t mind seeing those newly lowered tax rates raised again.

I’m not saying Pelosi’s going to get all that out of Trump in exchange for ratifying this trade deal, but she’ll get some of it. Her left-wing base will lose whatever mind it has left if she doesn’t, and she knows better than to just give Trump anything he wants – and he doesn’t just want this, he needs it – without getting anything from him in return.

That said, I suspect most Democrats actually like this deal better than they liked NAFTA, so Pelosi will run some risk in bluffing. I think her members want to support it, although they probably don’t want to give Trump any sort of political victory, which is why they’ll feel the need to claim at least something for themselves as well.

All of this is a horrible way to make policy. But it’s what we do in the United States of America these days.