 President Trump. (AP/Darron Cummings) By Matt O'Brien If you call something "the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere," you kind of have to get rid of it when you have the chance. So it seems like only a matter of time before President Trump really does begin to pull us out of the North American Free Trade Agreement so that he can try to negotiate a presumably "great deal" to replace it. The question, though, is what kind of deal this will be for American workers. And the answer may be not much of one. Now, if you listen to populists of the right- or left-wing variety, everyone from Ross Perot to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Trump himself says there's one reason — and only one reason — that we've lost so many manufacturing jobs the past few decades. It's that the government has forced blue-collar workers to compete on unfair terms with people from much poorer countries. In other words, we've struck trade deals that have helped American companies outsource jobs to low-cost countries, but hurt American workers who have been left with only McJobs. "Our politicians," Trump thundered during the campaign, "have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization, moving our jobs, our wealth and our factories to Mexico and overseas." It was a familiar litany of acronym-filled woe: NAFTA, China joining the WTO, and the TPP. (Those last two are the World Trade Organization and the now-defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership). "Trade reform and the negotiation of great deals," Trump went on, "is the quickest way to bring our jobs back to our country." There's only one problem with this. Read the rest on Wonkblog.
Chart of the day Sanctuary cities generally have less crime. Christopher Ingraham has more.
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