January, 31 2018, 08:30am EDT
Little On Trade, And Nothing Of Substance in Trump's First SOTU Speech
Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
WASHINGTON
Trump said little about trade, and nothing of substance and that is notable given the wide gulf between candidate Trump's fiery trade talk and his lack of deliverables as president to date.
Candidate Trump promised to stop American job outsourcing, bring down the trade deficit and bring jobs back with a fast renegotiation of the NAFTA and speedy action to reverse the huge China trade deficit.
Contrary to Trump's claim that our trade policy "has turned a corner," in his first year outsourcing has continued with even the Carrier workers Trump pledged to protect seeing their jobs shipped to Mexico, lucrative government contracts were given to firms that outsource including Carrier's parent corporation United Technologies, nothing was done to slow the flood of Chinese imports or boost U.S. exports there and the NAFTA and China trade deficits have risen.
The sixth round of beleaguered NAFTA renegotiations just ended in Montreal but the speech provided no clue to how Trump might deliver on his pledge to redo NAFTA to benefit working people nor did Trump reveal any plans to address our China trade disaster.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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