The administration is pushing for trade talks with other nations and plans to use its new agreement with Canada and Mexico as a blueprint for the future negotiations, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.
The U.S. is looking to redefine the rules on issues ranging from foreign exchange to how U.S. trade partners conduct business with China, the newspaper said.
As Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer called the new pact with Canada and Mexico a “paradigm-shifting model,” U.S. trade partners are now bracing for contentious talks.
The U.S. is still working on a strategy how the new pact will apply to others. However, the key element, as Trump has noted, will be that it is “a privilege for them to do business with us.”
“The U.S. is showing a power play,” said Andre Sapir, a former European Union economic adviser. “I don’t think Europe will want to enter into such an agreement—it would want to have balanced agreement.”
And Japan and Germany, the largest car exporters to the U.S. after Canada and Mexico, are preparing for U.S. demands for quotas to escape 25 percent tariffs that Trump has warned he would impose, according to the Journals.
In just the last few weeks, Trump had struck a deal with Canada and Mexico, signed a trade agreement with South Korea and convinced Japan to begin economic talks.
“Several months ago the U.S. had a multi-pronged attack on its trading partners,” said Dec Mullarkey, managing director for Sun Life Investment Management. “Now the U.S. can zero in on China.”
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