Canada immediately hit back, with tariffs on $30 billion (Canadian) or about $20 billion U.S., with tariffs on another $125 billion (Canadian) or about $80 billion U.S. of U.S. goods, to go into effect in three weeks. China also hit back, putting 10-15% tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports, to go into effect March 10. Mexico’s response was more subdued, with the Mexican president saying that she would announce their response on Sunday, March 9.

While the immediate counter-tariffs were somewhat restrained, as both Canada and China would like further talks, the Canadian Prime Minister and the Chinese representative from the Foreign Ministry used very strong language.

Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada described Trump’s tariffs as an existential threat to the country, saying the tariffs are designed to cause “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us” referring to Trump’s repeated desire to make Canada a 51st state. Public sentiment in Canada has turned anti-American, with Canadian hockey fans booing The Star-Spangled Banner when it played at a professional hockey game in Canada. China’s foreign ministry representative also used strong language, saying “if war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.” 

The immediate impact of the tariffs will be to cause a logjam of imports and exports at the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico. While many Chinese goods have been placed under tariffs since Trump’s first term, most goods crossing to and from Mexico and Canada largely had no tariffs and imposing them will be a logistical nightmare. This will lead to shortages, somewhat like the early days of the COVID pandemic, which also disrupted trade.

The second impact will be higher prices. Some of these price increases have already started. Others will show up in days. The amount that consumers will have to pay will vary by product. If there is a lot of competition in terms of other countries making the item, as in the case of shoes, the 20% tariffs on China will mean about an 8% increase in prices. More expensive products sold to people willing to pay more will see a larger pass-through to the consumer, such as iPhones, which could rise 15% in price. Finally, where there are almost no alternatives, such as avocados from Mexico, the 25% tariff could mean a 20% jump in prices.

One of the most expensive goods to be hit with tariffs will be automobiles, where U.S, Japanese and German corporations have factories. Here prices could rise by 15% or more, with the 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada. Over the last 30 years these car corporations have built integrated supply chains spanning all three countries in the wake of the NAFTA free trade agreement. Many auto parts cross the border many times, meaning that the 25% tariff might be applied not once, but multiple times.

Not only will the tariffs raise prices, they threaten economic recessions in Canada, Mexico and even in the United States. While the United States is less dependent on trade than Canada and Mexico, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta revised their estimate for U.S. Gross Domestic Product for the first three months of the year down to a negative 3.5% growth. This sharp drop in production, while not officially a recession, would typically be seen in a recession. 

To make matters worse, Trump is planning for even more tariffs. On March 12, Trump will put 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump has said that, on April 2, he will start tariffs on cars, medical drugs and semiconductors. Trump also plans to announce matching tariffs for every country, as his team is searching for foreign taxes that they could label as tariffs.

 #SanJoseCA #NAFTA #TradeWar #Trump #Tariffs

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump attacked the current NAFTA for its deleterious effect on U.S. workers and their communities and pledged to negotiate a “better” deal. The new agreement has some improvements for workers, but still contains many harmful clauses contained in the first treaty.

One improvement that could help workers is the elimination (in the case of the U.S. and Canada), or significant change (in the case of Mexico) of how corporations and governments can challenge regulations in any of the signatory nations. The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) panels are currently weighted heavily in favor of corporations and bypass each nation’s court system. But the new proposal has loopholes and is still weighted to corporations – for example it continues protections of U.S. companies that have contracts with Mexico’s National Hydrocarbon Commission, in case their contracts are cancelled by the recently elected government, which has pledged to keep the Mexican petroleum industry as property of the Mexican people.

One of the greatest problems with NAFTA is that it has allowed hundreds of U.S. companies to close their U.S. operations and move production to maquiladoras in Mexico where they can pay workers $1.50 per hour. These low wages have been often been locked in place because Mexican government has allowed yellow unions controlled by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) to ink contracts with employers before plants even open that protect the employers, not the workers. The new agreement requires the Mexican workers be given secret ballot elections on contracts and to eliminate all current “in place” agreements over a four year period.

However, like many other labor provisions of NAFTA 2.0 there are no effective enforcement mechanisms for the changes.

Also, some commentators have noted that the new treaty uses the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, rather than the more stringent and exacting ILO Conventions. One reason for this may be that the U.S. often refuses to endorse these conventions.

There are also new wage standards for the production of some goods in which a certain percentage of a final product must be produced by workers earning a certain wage, for example $16 per hour. It also has new standards to prevent the tariff-free pass through of goods partially made outside the three nations, i.e. requiring a certain percentage of value be produced in North America.

All of the new treaty’s provisions that might protect or improve the lives of workers still need better and more effective monitoring and enforcement written into the agreement. With a now Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, organized labor and its allies have an opportunity to have significant changes made to the agreement as signed if it is to pass Congress. So far the AFL-CIO has communicated little about the USMCA to its members. Just defeating the new agreement leaves us with the current NAFTA. While fighting for improvements is still a defensive struggle, it could leave unions and workers in better position to organize and win better contracts.

But such a fight must involve rank-and-file workers, not just union lobbyists if it is to be effective. We should focus on key changes and not get lost in all the arcane minutiae of the treaty’s many pages. To not do this would be to miss an opportunity to improve the lives of workers.

#NewYorkNY #NAFTA

The Trump administration has been bragging about how the New NAFTA, officially called the United States Canada Mexico Agreement or USCMA, will bring more jobs to the United States. The New NAFTA does raise the North American content for car parts rule and requires 40% of the labor in making the cars be paid $16 an hour, which is well above the wages paid to Mexican auto workers. But cars that don’t meet these new standards will only have to pay a 2.5% tariff, which is what all cars coming from Europe, Japan and South Korea already pay.

But even if the New NAFTA does boost auto manufacturing in the United States, it likely won’t help U.S. auto workers. Just look at what happened following the Trump administration’s tariffs on steel. U.S. steel prices rose 33%, U.S. steel companies’ profits soared, and U.S. steel workers got…nothing. In fact, the unionized steel workers at ArcelorMittel, the world’s biggest steel producer have authorized a strike against the company’s proposed contracts that would increase the cost of health care for its workers.

Less talked about, but important, are other changes made to the old NAFTA. Two changes refer to so-called “intellectual property” or the ability of corporations to make even more profits off of new ideas. The New NAFTA extends copyrights from 50 to 70 years beyond the death of the author. It also extends the patent period for new drugs to ten years, which will raise drug prices in Canada, where prices are often half that of the United States.

The New NAFTA also makes it harder for Canada and Mexico to restrict the use of GMOs (genetically modified organism) produced by large agribusinesses like Monsanto. The New NAFTA also paves the way for the use of new synthetic or man-made pesticides. Many of these synthetic pesticides have ended up being banned because of their effects on both animals and human beings, the most famous of which was DDT.

The New NAFTA is also an attempt to bind the Mexican and Canadian economies closer to the United States. One the changes is meant to prevent either country from signing a free trade agreement with China.

The Trump administration used a major threat of putting 25% tariffs on cars made in Mexico and Canada to extract some concessions for U.S. dairy farmers from Canada in the New NAFTA and then declared a great victory. Trump hopes to use the same method on the European Union and China. But both are much larger economies than either Canada or Mexico and are much less entwined with the U.S. economy. Both the EU and China have said that they are not going to be bullied by the Trump administration and retaliated to earlier Trump tariffs on European steel and aluminum and tariffs on almost half the goods that China exports to the United States.

The New NAFTA is good for big corporations, and bad for workers in U.S., Canada, and Mexico. It should be opposed and rejected.

#UnitedStates #US #PeoplesStruggles #NAFTA #economy #Trump #DonaldTrump #Trade

Específicamente, bajo el plan de Bush los trabajadores indocumentados solo pueden quedarse en el país por dos periodos de tres años. Hay que preguntarse entonces ¿Qué pasará cuando terminen esos periodos? De acuerdo al plan de Bush los inmigrantes podrían participar en el proceso ‘normal’ de inmigración. Debido a las cuotas anuales muy estrictas de inmigración, es prácticamente un camino sin salida para millones de trabajadores indocumentados. Otra parte de la propuesta de Bush dice que aquellos trabajadores indocumentados necesitarían que su empleador les auspicie. El efecto de esta propuesta sería encadenar a los trabajadores indocumentados a su trabajo, lo que haría más difícil dejar trabajos donde son discriminados y daría a los empleadores mucho poder sobre sus trabajadores inmigrantes.

La propuesta de Bush solo refleja que los grandes empresarios dependen en verdad de los inmigrantes. Actualmente una buena parte de la clase trabajadora de este país la integran los inmigrantes, quienes trabajan en las áreas más difíciles de la economía como son la agricultura, el servicio y las fábricas de manufactura. Millones de estos inmigrantes no tienen ni siquiera documentos legales o status legal.

Los grandes empresarios sueñan con una política migratoria en la que los mercados laborales estén bien regulados, donde haya una fuente amplia de trabajadores dispuestos a tomar cualquier trabajo cuando la economía esta creciendo. Los capitalistas también quieren tener la habilidad de expulsar estos trabajadores del país durante los tiempos de crisis o recesión económica, para evadir pagar, por ejemplo, a programas que dan seguro a los desempleados.

Las corporaciones estadounidenses han usando su poder político y económico para destruir las economías de muchos países del tercer mundo. Debido a esto, muchas personas se ven forzadas a emigrar a Estados Unidos en busca de una vida mejor, dejando atrás hogar y familia.

No es posible hablar sobre la inmigración hacia los Estados Unidos sin hablar de México, de donde vienen muchos de los trabajadores indocumentados.

Desde el robo del norte de México hasta NAFTA, el pueblo mexicano ha sufrido la opresión y explotación del imperio del norte. El aumento de la riqueza concentrada en Wall Street esta directamente relacionado con el aumento de la pobreza y miseria en las ciudades y el campo de México. Esta realidad da énfasis a la tontería y el chovinismo de la clase capitalista estadounidense cuando intentan hablar sobre la inmigración.

Periodistas derechistas y políticos egoístas destilan veneno sobre los ‘ilegales’ que cruzan la frontera del país; hablan como si fueran los dueños del suroeste de los Estados Unidos. Ignoran el hecho que Estados Unidos le robó esta tierra a México, y que los hablantes de español que quedaron en este lado de la frontera han sido oprimidos por más de un siglo y medio. En este proceso, surgió una nueva nacionalidad, los chicanos, quienes tienen el derecho a la auto-determinación como cualquier otra nacionalidad.

Todo lo que dicen los políticos reaccionarios sobre la inmigración y la frontera al sur (y sobre el suroeste del país en general) sería una tontería, si no fuera algo tan serio. Ellos hablan del suroeste del país (que robaron de México) como si fuera su propiedad privada. Cada año, cientos de hombres, mujeres y niños huyendo de la miseria – una miseria creado por las elites de los Estados Unidos – pierden sus vidas intentando cruzar la frontera. Esto es un problema de vida o muerte.

La única solución justa para los problemas legales de los trabajadores indocumentados es una amnistía inmediata y sin ninguna condición. Los inmigrantes no necesitan otro programa ‘bracero’ y no necesitan ser usados cínicamente por el partido republicano en un intento de ganar apoyo electoral de Latinos. Los trabajadores indocumentados necesitan documentos que les permitan quedarse a vivir y tener derechos.

Es vital que fortalezcamos el movimiento para una amnistía para los indocumentados. Al mismo tiempo tenemos que defender los derechos democráticos de los inmigrantes, como por ejemplo el derecho de conseguir una licencia de conducir y tener acceso completo a los servicios sociales. De tomar este camino, golpeamos al sistema de racismo, desigualdad e injusticia que sufren las nacionalidades oprimidas dentro de las fronteras de los Estados Unidos y al mismo tiempo unimos a todos los que se puedan en contra de los ricos que controlan el país.

#EstadosUnidos #Editorial #Editorials #ChicanoLatino #Bush #trabajadoresTemporales #trabajadoresIndocumentados #elRoboDelNorteDeMéxico #NAFTA