Has the Trump government’s trade policy hurt poorer and emerging economies?

Before Trump got elected, he made a lot of promises to bring jobs back to American factories –meaning exporting less from poorer countries than the US,where labor costs are lower. So has he lived up to these promises?

Recent press that tried to size up his trade policy record so far concludes he hasn’t really. The Trump government hasn’t carried out a lot of what they said they would do.

For example, the US is still a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Maxico and Canada—though Trump had said he would pull us out. And the US hasn’t followed Trump’s pre-election threats to jack up tariffs to as high as 45% on exports from China and we haven’t punished US firms that move to Mexico with a 35% tariff.

Trump did, however pull the US out of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement—a huge trade agreement with eleven countries including emerging economies—which is important to freer global trade.  Trumo also has ignored the World Trade Organization, even though the US remains a member and has worked outside of it on some occasions. For example, he set up a separate investigation of whether Chinese companies are stealing  US companies’ intellectual property. And he hasn’t moved fast enough to work toward filling empty judge positions at the WTO, which prevents it doing its job effectively.

A recent article in The Economist concludes that the emerging economy most hurt by Trump’s actions in the international trade space is Mexico, unsurprisingly. As our nearest neighbor to the south we do a lot of trade with Mexico. Even though the US remains in NAFTA, the Trump administration is moving to try to make it easier to prevent tariff-free imports from Mexico  if the prices are considered too low or if the volume of imports of a certain good imported from Mexico is too high. And it also wants to be able to work outside this agreement and its previously agreed rules to deal with any conflicts over investment with Mexico. The motive of the Trump administration is not only to protect American jobs but to cut the trade deficit the US now runs with both Mexico and Canada. This seems like an unfair tactic to me. Instead, we should be looking at what we can do in our own backyard to make the businesses we are best in more competitive.

 https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21729868-does-american-presidents-protectionism-pose-threat-emerging