Art Of The Deal: Trump Administration Praises “Paradigm-Shifting” Model

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer thinks we have a “Paradigm-Shifting” model. The notion is laughable.

The Wall Street Journal reports Trump Aims to Model New Trade Deals on Revised Nafta.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer called the new North American trade deal a “paradigm-shifting model” of American policy that sends a tough message to the rest of the world.

The underlying principle, as Mr. Trump himself said in unveiling the North American accord this week, is that trade partners should consider it “a privilege for them to do business with us.”

Whether the Trump team can replicate the new pact’s terms elsewhere is unclear. The White House had unusual leverage over Canada and Mexico with its threats to blow up a quarter-century-old pact that their economies had come to depend on.

The EU and Japan have no such existing trade pacts with the U.S., so have less to lose. Indeed, they see their own burgeoning free-trade-zones—an EU-Japan pact that doesn’t include the U.S. and the 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership from which Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S., both taking effect next year —as giving them leverage by putting U.S. exporters at a disadvantage.

But the Trump administration seeks to add clauses in future deals that allow the U.S. to withdraw if a trade partner forges a separate deal with a “nonmarket economy”—a clear reference to China. That could force Britain to choose between Washington and Beijing.

Three Delusional Ideas

On October 1, I mocked the notion of point number three in Trump Hails “Single Greatest Agreement Ever Signed”

What did it do?

There are two ways to look at things.