Goldman Expects Trump To Withdraw From NAFTA, Congress Readies For A Fight

With NAFTA negotiations going badly, Goldman Sachs has published a report, “Thoughts on the Potential US Withdrawal from NAFTA”, that concludes that the US is likely to withdraw from the trade agreement next year “At this point, efforts at revising the agreement look likely to be unsuccessful, though a deal is still possible, in our view. If the talks do not result in a revised agreement by early 2018, we believe that the Trump Administration could announce its intent to withdraw from NAFTA.” The NAFTA agreement calls for a six-month notice period before a nation can withdraw and “we believe it would follow a similar pattern to the strategy the White House has used in recent decisions on immigration (the DACA program), Iran, and health subsidies. Each involved a disruption to the status quo pursuant to a campaign pledge, with delayed implementation and an expectation that a new arrangement might be negotiated in the interim.”

Trump has threatened to pull out of the pact several times if “America First” demands are not met. Following an unsuccessful fourth round of discussions, the parties have accepted that end 2017 timeframe for reaching agreement will no longer be achieved and talks will extend into Q1 2018.

According to Goldman, major sticking points in the talks are:

5-year sunset: The US has proposed that NAFTA would be terminated after 5 years unless all three parties agree to keep it in force. As a practical matter, this would result in a prescheduled renegotiation every ?ve years and increase uncertainty while the agreement is in effect, decreasing the bene?ts of the agreement on investment and cross-border trade ?ows.

 

Chapter 19: NAFTA allows member countries to settle anti-dumping and countervailing duty disputes through binational arbitration, which has been a priority for Canada in particular.  The US has called for Chapter 19 to be non-binding.

 

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS): The US has called for the ISDS program to exist on an opt-in basis. ISDS allows companies to seek recourse against policy changes in NAFTA countries that infringe on property rights, such as expropriation of assets.

 

Government procurement: The Trump Administration is seeking “dollar for dollar government procurement, which would mean that Mexican or Canadian companies could bid on US government contracts equal only to the amount of Mexican or Canadian contracts open to US companies. This would reduce the amount of US government contracts open to NAFTA partners to a fraction of the current amount.

 

Rules of origin: NAFTA currently requires auto imports to include at least 62.5%n regional content, i.e., parts from NAFTA countries. The Trump Administration has proposed raising this threshold to 85%, and requiring 50% US content.  These levels seem unattainable, in our view, since the US applies only a 2.5% tariff on cars imported from outside NAFTA, and with such high content requirements auto companies would be better off paying the tariff instead.

While Goldman acknowledges that some of the demands might be merely part of a negotiating strategy, it cautions that some of them are of a binary nature, with little room for compromise versus the current agreement.

It sees three reasons for expecting the talks to fail:

First, the recent proposals suggest that the Trump Administration is not concerned about the possibility of a failure to revise the agreement.

 

Second, an announcement to withdraw from NAFTA would be in keeping with the strategy the White House has recently followed on other issues.  The Administration’s recent decisions regarding the Iran agreement, the DACA program, and ACA subsidies have followed the same pattern: The White House has announced that it will end the status quo, against expectations, but that it will allow for an interim period where a new arrangement could be negotiated.  In these examples, the White House has left Congress with the responsibility for establishing a replacement.

 

Third, it is far from clear that there would be suf?cient support in Congress to pass a revised NAFTA agreement at this point.  We believe most trade-skeptic lawmakers might not want to be associated with even a revised version of the agreement, and most pro-trade lawmakers might prefer the status quo, although they might be more supportive of a revised agreement if the US has already announced a withdrawal from NAFTA.

On that basis, it expects the White House to give notice of US withdrawal.

Meanwhile, the risk of a US withdrawal is galvanising efforts by Congress and the business sector to thwart Trump if he does, indeed, serve notice. A legal challenge is thought to be certain from both sides of the House and the auto industry. As the WSJ notes  “Congressional trade lawyers and attorneys from private firms in Washington have begun meeting informally to come up with ways to challenge any decision by President Donald Trump to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement.”

While contingency planning is in its early stages, the WSJ acknowledges that it has thrown up a critical question“ How much authority does the president actually have to scuttle an existing trade agreement? ‘This is sort of uncharted territory where no one really knows,’ said Warren Maruyama, a former trade official in the Reagan and two Bush administrations…Mr. Maruyama agreed that the president probably has the power to cancel or gut Nafta, but he expects challenges—with a chance of success—if Mr. Trump attempts to kill the deal unilaterally. “There are people who are desperately scouring [key provisions of trade law] on Capitol Hill and law firms and at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce right now to try to create some kind of argument that Trump can’t do this,” said Mr. Maruyama, now partner at Hogan Lovells LLP in Washington.”

The potential avenues for challenging a withdrawal appear to be twofold, either on the basis that it is unconstitutional, or that a President can’t reverse laws which were passed by Congress with regard to its implementation. Should Trump serve notice, any parties, such as lawmakers or businesses, with standing could seek an injunction in a Federal court. If that fails, the WSJ reports that Congress could still take further measures to exercise leverage over the White House “The Congressional Research Service said in a 2016 report that a final notice of withdrawal from the president ‘appears sufficient’ to release the U.S. from its international obligations under Nafta, but that Congress might wield a variety of powers to dissuade a president from canceling the deal, including through its control over the budget. Congress in theory could also pass a law reinstating Nafta or a similar agreement, but lawmakers are divided on the issue and unlikely to advance legislation protecting a trade agreement, especially if they don’t have a veto-proof majority.

For a moment, let’s assume that the US leaves NAFTA, what would it mean in economic terms?

Goldman explains that besides short-term uncertainty if the US does withdraw from NAFTA, Goldman predicts that the economic fallout will likely be relatively modest.

“A NAFTA withdrawal announcement would create near-term uncertainty but would likely have relatively modest economic effects, as the US-Canada trade would be likely to be covered under a prior free trade agreement, and exports to Mexico constitute only 1.2% of GDP. Most estimates of the trade gains from NAFTA suggest that it raised the level of US GDP by less than 0.2%, and some of these gains might have occurred anyway as Mexico has substantially lowered tariffs for non-NAFTA countries since the deal was implemented. That said, tariffs would rise, non-tariff barriers would increase, and some industries could face more substantial disruption. The auto sector would be most affected, as tariffs on some vehicles are still quite high outside of trade agreements and supply chains have been integrated across borders.  Agricultural trade, while not as large, would face important constraints given high protective tariffs on certain products.”

NAFTA Talks Heat Up As Trump Administration Takes Aggressive Stance On Autos

Trump"s NAFTA negotiators in recent days put forth a string of bold proposals on everything from auto rules of origin, a sunset clause, government procurement, and gutting dispute panels seen by the other nations as core to the pact. The moves were long-signaled, as was Canadian and Mexican opposition to them, but with a more aggressive stance taken by U.S. negotiators in the 4th round of talks, which will continue today in Washington D.C., many are beginning to question whether a deal is ultimately feasible.  Per Bloomberg:

The fourth round of Nafta talks will continue Monday at a Washington-area hotel, before a ministerial-level meeting on Tuesday. People familiar with the proceedings describe essentially a two-track process: legitimate progress being made to modernize the pact in less contentious areas, including topics like regulations and services, with essentially no progress on the most divisive U.S. proposals.

Nafta’s fate may now hang on how flexible the U.S. is about its demands heading into the fifth round of talks, scheduled for Mexico City around the first week of November. While the parties had wanted to reach a deal by December, officials familiar with the negotiations say the talks are likely to drag on for months.

Of course, hanging over the negotiations are Trump’s regular threats to walk away.

One official familiar with the proceedings, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, said on Sunday that it seems more likely Trump will give the mandatory six months’ notice required to leave Nafta, though not necessarily end up backing out. Others were less sure.

“He’s unpredictable, so I don’t know,” said Stephen Moore, a senior economic adviser during Trump’s campaign and chief economist at the Heritage Foundation. “I do feel, though, that his bark has been worse than his bite on trade. That doesn’t mean that he’s retreating. But I think we’re going to see a Nafta 2.0 that will find areas that will give the U.S. even greater benefits, while protecting American workers.”

Mexico has signaled that it won’t negotiate during the six-month window if Trump announces he’ll walk away, and it’s unclear what the next steps would be were that to happen. Congress and others are vowing legal and political fights if the president tries to pull out. If Trump manages to, though, Canada could still fall back on an existing bilateral deal with the U.S.; Mexico has no such previous deal.

That said, as Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means committee, said over the weekend, a full withdrawal from NAFTA would require a vote from Congress...a hurdle which Trump has had some difficulty clearing in his first 10 months in Washington D.C.

The proposals have spurred public warnings from prominent U.S. lawmakers and the private sector about the perils of scuttling a deal that over more than two decades has broken down trade barriers, including tariffs, for industries like manufacturing and agriculture.

Warnings are growing from Congress. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means committee, said he prefers a Nafta renewal to a pull-out, which he said Congress would probably block.

If Trump “even suggests that the United States should leave Nafta, to undo that relationship, you would have to go back to Congress. And that would be a much more difficult task for him,” Neal said in a Canadian TV interview with The West Block that aired on Sunday.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued its own warning. Last week, Chief Executive Officer Tom Donohue visited Mexico City and pledged to fight “like hell” to preserve Nafta. The largest American business lobbying group plans to send an “army” of representatives to Capitol Hill to demonstrate support for the deal, Donohue said.

Of course, as Boston Consulting Group pointed out in a recent presentation to the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, any success in imposing tariffs on imported parts could mean large price increases for American consumers as roughly $2,000 worth of content on each U.S. assembled car is sourced from Mexico.

Meanwhile, Mexico is just one small component of a truly global automotive supply chain with $3,500 worth of imported parts on each car assembled in U.S. plants.

For those reasons, Mexico’s negotiators said they’re still optimistic a deal can be reached because they expect pushback from the U.S. private sector.

Here is the full presentation from Boston Consulting Group:

Latest NAFTA Talks End In Disappointment As Attendees Question Lack Of U.S. Engagement

President Trump has threatened a quick termination of NAFTA a countless number of times, with the latest coming just last weekend via twitter:

We are in the NAFTA (worst trade deal ever made) renegotiation process with Mexico & Canada.Both being very difficult,may have to terminate?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2017

Of course, like with most Trump deals, it"s often very difficult to differentiate between bombastic rhetoric utilized for establishing negotiating power and actual desired results.  According to Bloomberg, so far the speed of U.S. negotiations, led by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, have failed to live up to the President"s rhetoric leaving many to question whether a "deal" is the desired outcome for this administration.

The latest Nafta talks are nearing conclusion without a major breakthrough or agreements on even the least-contentious topics, officials familiar with the negotiations say, fueling doubts among observers that a deal can be reached this year.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is scheduled to speak publicly alongside Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland Tuesday to conclude the second round of talks toward a new North American Free Trade Agreement. Their appearance will cap a five-day session in Mexico City.

While negotiators have made some progress, they have yet to agree on any major contentious issue and are far from a deal on individual Nafta chapters, the officials said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters. On some topics, discussion has been verbal with no specific text proposals submitted, they said.

The talks came after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened outright withdrawal from the agreement. While slow progress is normal in most trade negotiations, the nations have been seeking an unusually quick timeline for Nafta, and officials expressed doubt a deal could be reached by the target date of December. That sentiment is shared by many observers and stakeholders who say the U.S. has been slow in detailing its actual demands.

Meanwhile, folks from all sides attending negotiating sessions in Mexico City have been surprised by the lack of U.S. engagement with one trade strategist from Canada predicting that the earliest date for a possible deal would be February or March 2018.

David Wiens, a farmer and vice president of the Dairy Farmers of Canada, said he’s been surprised by the lack of written and firm policy proposals put forward by the U.S. government. That makes him believe it’s "a bit unrealistic" to get a deal by December.

"What we’re hearing on the ground here is the Americans have still not posted all the texts for the different chapters," Wiens said in an interview in Mexico City. "If there’s a strategy behind all of that, I’m certainly not recognizing it.”

"They can’t possibly finish. The Americans haven’t started negotiating yet," said Peter Clark, a trade strategist and former Canadian official. Jerry Dias, a Canadian labor leader, said he’d "be shocked if it gets done before Christmas."

Clark said the earliest possible date for a deal is February or March, and even then it would likely be an agreement-in-principle that wouldn’t be finalized until after Mexican and U.S. elections. "It’s not really a negotiation. What you have is a president who says he’s been robbed for years," Clark said. "He wants to break a contract without any penalty."

Finally, the most critical component of the NAFTA negotiations (or at least the component that gets all the media attention), auto manufacturing, apparently hasn"t even been touched yet. 

One key issue without a firm policy proposal is what threshold the U.S. is seeking for the so-called rules of origin on the auto sector -- the share of a vehicle that must be sourced within Nafta countries to receive the pact’s benefits. The current level is 62.5 percent and Dias said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross wants a "significantly" higher figure.

The auto threshold is "the heart of the American objective," said Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association in Canada. "Negotiators will be very careful before pegging a rate that would drive assessments of success or failure.

The outlook isn’t entirely gloomy. One official described a two-track process -- a political one dominated by Trump’s threats, and a more constructive and technocratic track with negotiators plodding forward in search of agreement.

So what say you?  Is this all a clever charade from a White House that has no real interest in negotiating and would rather withdraw from NAFTA altogether, or is it all just another sign of a woefully unprepared, chaotic administration?

Visualizing NAFTA's Mixed Track Record Since 1994

On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) officially came into effect, virtually eliminating all tariffs and trade restrictions between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins reminds readers:

Bill Clinton, who lobbied extensively to get the deal done, said it would encourage other nations to work towards a broader world-trade pact. “NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs,” said Clinton, as he signed the document, “If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t support this agreement.”

Ross Perot had a contrary perspective. Lobbying heavily against the agreement, he noted that if it was ratified, Americans would hear a giant “sucking sound” as jobs went south of the border to Mexico.

IT’S A COMPLICATED WORLD

Fast forward 20 years, and NAFTA is a hot-button issue again. Donald Trump has said he is working on “renegotiating” the agreement, and many Americans are sympathetic to this course of action.

However, coming to a decisive viewpoint on NAFTA’s success or failure can be difficult to achieve. Over two decades, the economic and political landscape has changed. China has risen and created a surplus of cheap labor, technology has changed massively, and central banks have kept the spigots on with QE and ultra-low interest rates. Deciphering what results have been the direct cause of NAFTA – and what is simply the result of a fast-changing world – is not quite straightforward.

In today’s chart, we break down a variety of metrics on the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to give a “before” and “after” story. The result is a mixed bag, but it will at least paint a picture of how the nations have fared comparatively since the agreement came into effect in 1994.

NAFTA: A MIXED TRACK RECORD

On the plus side, NAFTA created the world’s largest free trade area of 450 million people, where trade between the three members quadrupled from $297 billion to $1.14 trillion during the period of 1993-2015.

Further, the agreement likely had the effect of lowering prices for consumers, especially for food, automobiles, clothing, and electronics. It also reduced U.S. reliance on oil from OPEC. In 1994, the United States got 59% of its oil imports from OPEC, but that number is reduced to 44% today as trade with Canada has ramped up. Canada is now the #1 source of foreign oil in the United States.

NAFTA has also unequivocally led to the movement of auto jobs. While the amount of autos manufactured in North America has increased from 12.5 million (1990) to 18.1 million (2016), the share of that production has shifted.

Mexico now produces 20% of all vehicles in North America – and U.S./Canadian shares have shifted down accordingly over the years. The ultimate result is the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs in both Michigan and Ontario, Canada.

As a final note, we also looked at comparing macroeconomic indicators from 1980-1993 (“Pre-NAFTA”) with those from 1994-2016 (“Post-NAFTA”).

For the U.S. in particular, here’s what has changed:

This is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis, but it gives a snapshot of what has changed since NAFTA was ratified.

These Are Mexico's Top Exports

While readers are aware by now of the intricate trade link that binds Mexico to the US, it is more than merely autos and avocados. As the chart below shows, of the $302 billion in total Mexican exports (offset by $179 billion in imports), the largest two categories were electrical machinery & equipment, followed by nuclear reactors, boilers machinery & equipment, with motor only coming in third spot. But no matter the breakdown in categories, one thing is clear: Mexico needs the US - which imports over 80% of Mexico"s net exports - and the NAFTA agreement far more than the US does (which is not to say that the US won"t be impacted once NAFTA is eliminated).

Here are some further thoughts from SocGen"s Dev Ashish on the trade relationship between Mexico and the US:

Apart from the rhetoric coming out of the US in the past two-three months, particularly after the US election results, this week’s executive order by President Trump, essentially pulling the US out of the TPP trade agreement, has removed some of the uncertainty over the trade and investment outlook for Mexico. To a large extent this was already priced in by the market and few were hopeful of the deal going through under the new US regime.

What has become a greater uncertainty now is the likely path and shape of NAFTA. As we have said in the past, NAFTA has considerable value for the Mexican economy. Mexico’s exports to the US over past 12 months were at USD302bn or 81% of its total exports. During the same time, however, Mexico’s imports to the US were USD178.9bn or 46% of Mexico’s total imports. Mexico runs a trade surplus of nearly USD123bn with the US while it runs significant trade deficit with rest of the world.

Put simply, trade with the US has profound implications for Mexico’s investment and overall growth outlook. In a situation when the rhetoric is fast threatening to become reality, the impact of a possible change in the NAFTA provisions for Mexico can’t be overstated.

This is precisely what Trump was relying on when he called Pena Nieto"s bluff yesterday. And despite the fireworks, eventually, Mexico will have to come to the negotiating table as otherwise a substantial percentage of Mexico"s total annual exports, shown below, will suddenly find themselves with no willing buyer. Here is a list of the Top Mexican exports in the past year: