WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump campaigned on an “America First” trade policy of bracing clarity: Renegotiate or abandon NAFTA and crack down on China’s trade practices.
Yet so far, his trade policy has produced mostly confusion and division, even among fellow Republicans. At stake may be the president’s credibility over whether and how he will deliver on his campaign vow to undo decades of American trade policy and restore millions of manufacturing jobs lost to foreign competition.
The latest puzzler broke out Wednesday over the prospect that the Trump administration would simply abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement rather than start to renegotiate it. The White House leaked that possibility to reporters, rattling investors and drawing protests from business groups and Republican lawmakers.
Yet hours later, Trump called it all off. He would actually seek to revamp the trade pact with Canada and Mexico, he said, and pull out of NAFTA only if he couldn’t secure a favorable deal.
Mexico’s top diplomat said the country learned only through media reports that the Trump administration was considering a draft executive order to withdraw from NAFTA.
Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said Mexican officials reached out to their counterparts in Washington to discuss the reports. At the end of the day Wednesday, President Enrique Pena Nieto called Trump, and the two leaders spoke for about 20 minutes.
Some trade policy analysts say the confusion reflects divisions within the administration between those who support Trump’s tough campaign rhetoric on trade and those who take a more traditional Republican view favoring trade agreements.