Certainly a newly released administration document, “The President’s 2017 Trade Policy Agenda,” reflects the influence of Mr. Lighthizer and Mr. Navarro. The six-page statement rehearses once again their critique of U.S. trade policy since the Cold War’s end: Multilateral trade agreements and institutions such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and World Trade Organization have sacrificed American sovereignty, to the ultimate cost of U.S. jobs, especially manufacturing jobs. Familiar and, indeed, shared by many of Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponents though it may be, this narrative is far from an accurate diagnosis. Whether this decline is 100 percent the fault of the WTO, NAFTA or any other multilateral trade deal, as opposed to automation and other long-term factors not unique to the United States, is another question. And the real blindness consists in unilaterally asserting “sovereignty” and “protection” without regard to the legitimate interests of other nations, or their capacity for retaliation.

Source: Washington Post March 06, 2017 00:33 UTC