How Bill Clinton’s NAFTA law in 1994 could sink Kamala Harris in 2024

[Valin]

The Washington Examiner

Haisten Willis
October 15, 2024

 

A political controversy that’s more than three decades old could cost Vice President Kamala Harris the 2024 election next month.

Democratic President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement that went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994. The deal was fiercely opposed by labor unions and some environmentalists but backed by Clinton, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and a coalition that included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

What critics say Clinton set into motion was the erosion of American manufacturing, off-shoring of jobs overseas, and union distrust of the Democratic Party by way of shrinking paychecks.

Donald Trump tapped into that frustration when he burst onto the scene in 2015, blasting NAFTA as the “single worst trade deal ever approved in this country” and blaming the husband of his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for the demise of workers in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Now, Trump is making trade deals front and center in his White House comeback bid as Harris struggles to connect with rank-and-file union workers, especially men, who have been leery of the Biden-Harris push for green vehicles. The disconnect could be enough to shatter the blue wall and once again propel Trump to the presidency.

“As soon as I started talking about what I’m going to do, [automakers] stopped building all of the plants in Mexico,” Trump said on Fox News on Sunday. “I said I was going to put in tariffs. To me, ‘tariff’ is a very beautiful word. It’s a word that’s going to make our country rich again. Without tariffs, we have a busted country.”

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Trump capitalized on anti-NAFTA sentiment during his 2016 upset victory over Hillary Clinton and replaced the deal while in office with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Now, he’s saying that the deal didn’t go far enough.

“There’s always little tricks they want to play,” Trump said at the MotorCity Casino in downtown Detroit. “I said nope, I want to be able to renegotiate at six years. Otherwise, we’re not making the deal.”

Trump made the comments as he promised China would not be able to sell vehicles into the U.S. from plants it plans to build in Mexico. As currently negotiated, the USMCA allows foreign companies to export cars to the U.S. without steep duties if they are locally sourced. 

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