The Trump Administration announced Thursday that planned tariffs on metal will go into effect at midnight, levying a 10% surcharge on all aluminum and a 25% surcharge on all steel originating in Canada, Mexico, and the European Union.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross confirmed the plan on a phone call with reporters Thursday morning, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/us/politics/trump-aluminum-steel-tariffs.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytimes">according to The New York Times</a>.
The Trump Administration, which announced plans to tax imports of raw metal back in March, had been using the threat of tariffs as a bargaining tactic to re-negotiate trade relationships within North America and between the United States and the European Union. Ross said Thursday that trade talks are &#8220;ongoing,&#8221; but that the U.S. hasn&#8217;t seen the kind of progress they&#8217;d expect, so they aren&#8217;t interested in delaying the tariffs.
The U.S. had reportedly hoped that Europe would voluntarily reduce metal shipments and cut their own tariffs on American products, but the E.U. simply didn&#8217;t agree, even though the U.K. said they&#8217;d like to &#8220;liberalize&#8221; trade relations with the U.S..
Although they aren&#8217;t saying it explicitly, the Trump Administration is likely looking to ink a trade deal with important trading partners quickly and with good terms. The threat of tariffs worked with China; after only a few days under a new &#8220;trade deal&#8221; imposed unilaterally by Trump Administration negotiators, China agreed to make changes to the partnership that would gradually decrease the trade deficit between the two countries.
Trump is clearly looking to repeat that success.

Trump Administration Announces Steel Tariffs Against Canada, Mexico, European Union

Canada

European Union

Free Trade

Mexico

NAFTA

Trump Administration

Scrapping or renegotiating major free trade deals was a cornerstone of Donald Trump&#8217;s populist presidential campaign. Trump appears to be following through with his pledge to turn U.S. trade policy on its head. On Thursday, President Trump initiated the formal renegotiation process for the decades-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
By sending a letter signed by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Trump has triggered a 90-day mandatory grace period before the U.S. can begin negotiating with NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico.
Trump has 60 days (30 days before the start of formal negotiations) to notify Congress about the specific goals of renegotiating the trade agreement. No specifics were provided in the initial letter drafted to Congress Thursday.
&#8220;But the lack of specifics is notable, because the White House sent a more detailed eight-page draft notice to Capitol Hill in late March that included what the administration was looking for in nearly 20 different areas,&#8221; <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/18/trump-administration-formally-kicks-off-renegotiation-of-nafta-238552">notes</a> Politico.
Trump&#8217;s views on trade may be the one constant in an administration defined by &#8220;flexibility&#8221; and flip-flopping.
Appealing to blue-collar workers in the Midwest, Rust Belt, and other regions that have experienced major setbacks since globalization and rapid technological advancement rendered many jobs in the manufacturing sector outdated and unprofitable, Trump has called for a complete overhaul of U.S. trade policy in an effort to promote &#8220;fair trade.&#8221;
What Trump and his fellow protectionists fail to recognize and perhaps even come to terms with is the fact that technology, not immigration or trade, is largely responsible for wiping out large sections of the manufacturing sector. As liberal activists fighting for mandatory $15 minimum wage have begun to slowly realize, businesses (in this case businesses in the food services industry) are eager to promote automation over human labor as replacing one with the other is cost-effective.
At the end of the day, renegotiating free trade deals may do more harm than good. Consumers (especially lower-income consumers) that have grown accustomed to purchasing cheap exports will suffer the most, while American jobs that have been long buried by the proliferation of automated technology may realistically never return.
The move to begin the process of renegotiation comes after Trump threatened to pull out of NAFTA completely. According to the president himself, he backed down from the threat after the heads of state from both Canada and Mexico made frantic phone calls to the White House pleading for another solution. These claims have yet to be supported by independent reports.

Trump Begins Process Of Renegotiating NAFTA After Threatening To Shred Trade Deal Entirely

Donald Trump

Republican Party

As President Trump&#8217;s first hundred days came to a quiet close, Trump planned a series of big announcements that would reshift the direction of his administration: he&#8217;d talk taxes, he&#8217;d shoehorn a vote on Obamacare repeal, he&#8217;d take a powerful stance against North Korea. That, at least, was the plan at the beginning of the week.
It turned out differently.
Here are Trump&#8217;s grades so far:
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/12865/grading-trumps-first-week-b-ben-shapiro">Week 1: B+</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/13129/grading-trumps-second-week-ben-shapiro">Week 2: A-</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/13369/grading-trumps-third-week-d-ben-shapiro">Week 3: D</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/13585/grading-trump-week-4-c-ben-shapiro">Week 4: C-</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/13835/grading-trump-week-5-b-ben-shapiro">Week 5: B+</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14085/grading-trump-week-6-ben-shapiro">Week 6: B</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14317/grading-trump-week-7-ben-shapiro">Week 7: D+</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14524/grading-trump-week-8-ben-shapiro">Week 8: D</a>
Week 9: D
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14979/grading-trump-week-10-ben-shapiro">Week 10: D-</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/15218/grading-trump-week-11-ben-shapiro">Week 11: B</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/15421/grading-trump-week-12-ben-shapiro">Week 12: A-</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/15626/grading-trump-week-13-ben-shapiro">Week 13: C</a>
As always, we grade Trump along three lines: rhetoric, policy, and the in-between (rhetoric that impacts policy).
Rhetoric: This was not a good week on rhetoric for President Trump. This week, Trump reportedly told the media he didn&#8217;t expect the presidency to be so hard; this came after Trump said that he reshifted his thinking on China policy after a ten-minute conversation with the Chinese leader. He continues to trot out his election victory in every media interview, without reference to current accomplishments. Trump still hasn&#8217;t commented on the hubbub in Berkeley, which is shocking &#8211; that&#8217;s an easy win for Trump if he embraces the issue. The high point for Trump was his speech on Holocaust Memorial Day &#8211; and indeed, it should have put to bed any lingering doubts over supposed Trumpian anti-Semitism.
Policy: A rotten week for Trump. Another attempted Obamacare repeal failed in the House, at least in part thanks to Trump&#8217;s repeated statements regarding the necessity of maintaining pre-existing conditions regulations on insurance companies. The tax reform plan was announced, but lacking sufficient detail. Trump talked about destroying trade relations with Mexico and Canada, then backed out, then talked about it some more. Trump&#8217;s sanctuary cities executive order, which was horribly drawn legally, was stayed by a federal judge. Trump also backed off the demand for funding of the wall, signed off on continued funding for Obamacare, and continued to fund Planned Parenthood in order to avoid the dreaded government shutdown.
The In-Between: Trump&#8217;s treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, laid out the central proposals for Trump&#8217;s tax reform plan. They&#8217;re great. They&#8217;re also unworkable with the current Congress, given the need to fulfill certain requirements to pass a bill using the reconciliation process. Trump threatened Canada with increased tariffs repeatedly; he floated a trial balloon about pulling out of NAFTA, then had to be convinced not to do so by both his own staff and the leaders of Canada and Mexico. The economy grew at only 0.7 percent in the first quarter this year, which undercuts Trump&#8217;s narrative about the boom he has touched off. Trump took a tough line on North Korea, but then said he wanted to pressure South Korea into new trade agreements while threatening to force them to pay for their missile defense system; he then warned of a &#8220;major, major conflict&#8221; with North Korea. The lone true bright spot: Trump talked about breaking up the 9th Circuit.
The only thing that saved Trump&#8217;s week in any major way was the ruckus out of Berkeley and the Democratic infighting over both abortion and President Obama&#8217;s sky-high Wall Street speakers fees. Trump continues to benefit from the fact that while he&#8217;s not doing a particularly good job overall, his enemies are stepping on every rake they can find.
This week&#8217;s grade: F
Final 100 Days Grade: C

Grading Trump, Week 14 … Plus The 100 Day Grade

Obamacare

On Wednesday, the White House announced that President Donald J. Trump was considering rethinking his position that the United States would withdraw from NAFTA. It appears that Trump id still ready to pull out of NAFTA but decided to hold off on a decision after President Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada requested he rethink his position.
The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/26/readout-president-donald-j-trumps-call-president-pe%C3%B1a-nieto-mexico-and">White House statement</a> read:
<blockquote>
Late this afternoon, President Donald J. Trump spoke with both President Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. Both conversations were pleasant and productive. President Trump agreed not to terminate NAFTA at this time and the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures, to enable the renegotiation of the NAFTA deal to the benefit of all three countries. President Trump said, &#8220;it is my privilege to bring NAFTA up to date through renegotiation. It is an honor to deal with both President Peña Nieto and Prime Minister Trudeau, and I believe that the end result will make all three countries stronger and better.
</blockquote>
Trump has been slamming the NAFTA agreement since his presidential run began. As far back as September 2015, Trump <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/25/trump-nafta-trade-deal-a-disaster-says-hed-break-i/">said</a> of NAFTA, &#8220;We will either renegotiate it or we will break it,&#8221; calling it &#8220;a disaster &#8230; Every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair.&#8221; Trump doubled down on his rhetoric a year later<a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-delivers-speech-on-jobs-at-new-york-economic-club">, saying,</a> &#8220;We are going to start with NAFTA, which is causing so much damage to our country.&#8221;
Except that Trump is wrong; NAFTA is actually good for the United States.
As Senator Jeff Flake pointed out:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Before NAFTA, trade between the US and Mexico was around $50 billion. Now it stands at more than $500 billion. What&#8217;s not to like?
&#8212; Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffFlake/status/857578274293248000">April 27, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Further, NAFTA, which links the economies of the United states, Mexico, and Canada, <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/advantages-of-nafta-3306271">created</a> the world&#8217;s largest free trade area of 450 million people, with a gross domestic product of $20.08 trillion. Between 1993-2015, trade between the three members quadrupled from $297 billion to $1.14 trillion, thus lowering prices for consumers.

Trump Flirts With Dumping NAFTA, Instead Reiterates American Support

Enrique Peña Nieto

Justin Trudeau

The Trump administration is <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/26/white-house-nafta-withdraw-trump-237632">reportedly</a> mulling over an executive order to officially withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Trump&#8217;s protectionist tendencies have been one of the few policy positions he has been consistent on throughout his career, and he has particularly targeted NAFTA, calling it &#8220;very, very bad for our country&#8221; and promising &#8220;to make some very big changes or we are going to get rid of NAFTA once and for all.&#8221;
Here are seven things you need to know about Trump potentially withdrawing from NAFTA.
1. Trump&#8217;s precise problems with NAFTA have never been specified. Trade expert Chad P. Bown <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/15/what-is-nafta-and-what-would-happen-to-u-s-trade-without-it/?utm_term=.39e901cb0d77">noted</a> that Trump&#8217;s comments in railing against NAFTA have tended to focus on vague generalities about trade deficits (<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/15001/trump-rips-china-trade-deficits-here-are-5-reasons-aaron-bandler">which are irrelevant</a>) and promises of keeping companies from leaving the United States. 
2. The executive order could be leverage to strong-arm Canada and Mexico into re-negotiating NAFTA. That&#8217;s what the initial Politico report speculated; however, the outlet pointed out that &#8220;once Trump sets the withdrawal process in motion, the prospects for the U.S. pulling out of one of the largest trade deals on the globe become very real.&#8221; According to <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-calls-nafta-the-single-worst-trade-deal-but-heres-the-truth-2017-04-26">MarketWatch</a>, a Trumpified NAFTA would entail modifying the rules of origin so more automobile parts originate in the U.S. and other NAFTA countries (the current rule of origin has 62.5 percent originating from NAFTA countries) as well as strengthening &#8220;labor and environmental standards.&#8221;
3. If Trump does withdraw the U.S. from NAFTA, then the country would revert back to prior trade agreements. According to Bown, nixing NAFTA could result in the U.S., Canada and Mexico using the same tariffs they use for other World Trade Organization (WTO) countries toward each other, meaning that &#8220;new U.S. tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico could increase to an average of 3.5 percent. For new trade barriers facing U.S. exporters, Canada&#8217;s import tariffs would increase to 4.2 percent and Mexico&#8217;s would increase to 7.5 percent.&#8221; Under NAFTA, tariffs were zeroed out between the three countries.
Another possible outcome of the withdrawal from NAFTA could be the U.S. and Canada resorting to their trade agreement prior to NAFTA, where trade between the two countries didn&#8217;t feature any tariffs, while Mexico and Canada can keep NAFTA in place for trade between those two countries, per Bown. This would essentially mean that withdrawing from NAFTA would mostly harm trade between the U.S. and Mexico.
4. Withdrawing from NAFTA would disrupt supply chains. Economist James Pethokoukis <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/more-reality-checks-on-the-north-american-free-trade-agreement/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+aei-ideas%2Fpethokoukis+%28AEIdeas+%C2%BB+Pethokoukis%29">highlighted</a> a New York Times article noting that NAFTA has fused the U.S., Canada and Mexico into &#8220;a single integrated economy&#8221; that has caused &#8220;improved competitiveness of American companies in the global auto market since the 1990s&#8221; due to &#8220;more efficient North American supply chains.&#8221; Therefore, withdrawing from NAFTA would be detrimental to the automobile industry &#8211; especially in the U.S. and Mexico &#8211; as well as the economy as a whole.
5. Trade with Mexico is responsible for almost five million jobs in the U.S. If MarketWatch is correct that the trade deal has created nearly 5 million jobs, then it follows that those jobs and similar future job creation could be at risk. 
6. NAFTA is not responsible for job losses. NAFTA is a convenient political scapegoat, but the data simply does not support the protectionists&#8217; assertions that NAFTA has resulted in job losses. According to <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442188/donald-trump-nafta-what-should-he-do-now">a 2015 Congressional Research Service paper</a>, &#8220;NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters. The net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy appears to have been relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico accounts for a small percentage of U.S. GDP.&#8221;
Additionally, trade attorney Scott Lincicome has <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433575/trade-jobs-free-trade-hurting-american-economy">pointed out</a> that there is no evidence to suggest that U.S. productivity has slowed after the passage of NAFTA:
<blockquote>
Meanwhile, it is a myth that the United States &#8220;doesn&#8217;t make anything anymore&#8221; or that trade agreements have caused a &#8220;giant sucking sound&#8221; as investment and jobs go elsewhere. Our manufacturers continue to set production and export records, and the United States is the world&#8217;s second-largest manufacturer (17.2 percent of total global output) and third-largest exporter. America also remains the world&#8217;s top destination for foreign direct investment ($384 billion in 2015 alone) &#8212; more than double second-place Hong Kong and almost triple third-place China. Much of this investment went to U.S. manufacturing assets, as shiny new BMW, Toyota, and other foreign-owned plants across the American South attest.
</blockquote>
Lincicome also pointed to research from the Peterson Institute concluding that free trade has resulted in &#8220;between $2,800 and $5,000 in additional income for the average American and between $7,100 and $12,900 for the average household,&#8221; primarily benefiting those in the poor and middle class. The job losses that have occurred in the manufacturing industry have been the result of automation, not trade agreements like NAFTA.
7. Trump&#8217;s move to potentially withdraw from NAFTA is politics, pure and simple. The rise of populist anger in the U.S. has created an atmosphere that is more hostile to trade, particularly in the Rust Belt states that propelled Trump to the White House. Possibly withdrawing from NAFTA then appeases Trump&#8217;s voting bloc in those states, creating a scenario in which politics breeds bad economics. But Trump thus far has shown that he only cares about what gains him popularity, not necessarily doing what is right for the country.
<a href="https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter">Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter.</a>

BREAKING: Trump May Pull Out Of NAFTA. Here Are 7 Things You Need To Know.

The Trump administration looks to redefine trade metrics to give the impression that the trade deficit is larger than it is. According to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-considers-change-in-calculating-u-s-trade-deficit-1487523299">The Wall Street Journal</a>, individuals associated with these talks have suggested that the team looks to remove any goods first imported into the country then sent to a third nation from the list of US exports. 
Manipulating how exports and imports are defined shifts the balance of trade, which is calculated by taking the total amount credited from selling exports overseas and subtracting the amount debited to pay imports. If the administration follows through with the aforementioned suggestion, then it would insinuate that our nation sells less goods and buys far more from places like China, Taiwan, Mexico, and other nations.
This would fuel Trump&#8217;s protectionist fires, as some economists suggested, giving the President additional grounds for jamming controversial trade policies through. According to Trump&#8217;s logic, if his administration lowers the number of exports, then it will increase the trade deficit.
However, manipulating economic statistics could lead to additional problems. Steve Landefeld, the former director of the Bureau of Economic Affairs (BEA), stated the statisticians look for symmetry in their analyses, suggesting that &#8220;[i]f you&#8217;re going to begin to exclude re-exports from the U.S. export figures, you probably for reasons of symmetry would want to adjust import figures as well.&#8221;
Much of the controversy surrounding Trump&#8217;s trade talk comes from a long debate on why Rust Belt jobs have disappeared. While the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/dec677c0-b7e6-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62">suggested</a> that 85% of the manufacturing jobs lost between 2000 and 2010 came as a result of automation rather than trade deals. Trump thinks that exploiting statistics will offset the evidence that automation is the larger culprit behind the decline of American manufacturing. However, Trump&#8217;s attempt to disseminate alternative facts from fudged metrics will only create more economic hardship rather than bring jobs back to the United States.
Follow Elliott on <a href="https://twitter.com/ElliottRHams">Twitter</a>.

Here’s How The Trump Administration Plans To Inflate The Statistics About The Trade Deficit

Economy

President Trump <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/23/trump-tells-business-leaders-he-wants-to-cut-regulations-by-75-percent-or-maybe-more.html">announced</a> today that he could consider cutting regulations by at least 75%. This is a welcome development considering that many of the economic issues that exist today are related to government interference in many industries.
However, Trump supplemented sound economic and government policy with his idiotic reliance on protectionism. He announced today that he would sign executive orders calling to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-withdraws-u-s-from-trans-pacific-partnership-1485191020?mod=e2tw">withdraw</a> from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
According to Trump and some of his supporters, these free trade agreements have strangled American workers and outsourced manufacturing jobs, leading to the decline of the Rust Belt over the past few decades. However, studies <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/dec677c0-b7e6-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62">indicate</a> that automation is the bigger cause for the loss of manufacturing jobs more than the free trade agreements that resulted in lower-wage labor.
Furthermore, Trump <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/president-trump-focuses-on-trade-with-very-major-border-tax-promise-1485183598?mod=e2tw">indicated</a> that he would create tariffs for companies that outsource jobs to the United States, saying &#8220;if you go to another country&#8230;we are going to be imposing a very major border tax.&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s economic policies contradict economic reality that free trade <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2015/10/17/actually-everyone-benefits-from-free-trade/#683d9a511221">helps</a> not only Americans but also our trade partners. In fact, free trade is a hallmark of the freedoms that the United States should encourage rather than prevent in the name of political expediency. As Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/some-economic-lessons-about-international-trade-for-donald-trump-from-milton-friedman-and-henry-george/">wrote</a> last March, quoting Milton Friedman:
<blockquote>Trade is not invasion. It does not involve aggression on one side and resistance on the other, but mutual consent and gratification. There cannot be a trade unless the parties to it agree, any more than there can be a quarrel unless the parties to it differ. England, we say, forced trade with the outside world upon China, and the United States upon Japan. But, in both cases, what was done was not to force the people to trade, but to force their governments to let them. If the people had not wanted to trade, the opening of the ports would have been useless.</blockquote>
<blockquote>&#8220;Trade is not invasion. It does not involve aggression on one side and resistance on the other, but mutual consent and gratification.&#8221;
Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute</blockquote>
If Donald Trump is serious about helping American workers and protecting freedom, then he would not encourage protectionist policies that will only harm our country rather than help it.
Follow Elliott on <a href="https://twitter.com/ElliottRHams">Twitter</a>.

BAD TRUMP: President Signs Executive Orders In Favor of Protectionism

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

A new study conducted by the Ann Arbor nonprofit Center for Automotive Research (CAR) finds that if president-elect Donald Trump withdraws from NAFTA and imposes his projected 35% tariff on imported vehicles and parts, vehicle prices will soar, the U.S. auto market will shrink and at least 31,000 U.S. auto manufacturing jobs will be killed.
The authors of the report noted, &#8220;Any move by the United States to withdraw from NAFTA or to otherwise restrict automotive vehicle, parts and components trade within North America will result in higher costs to producers, lower returns for investors, fewer choices for consumers and a less competitive U.S. automotive and supplier industry. The report was funded by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers trade group.
Trump has termed NAFTA a &#8220;disaster&#8221; and threatened automakers selling Mexican-made vehicles in the U.S. with a 35% tariff.
The report estimates that a 35% tariff on vehicles imported from Mexico would trigger a plunge in employment in which 6,700 North American assembly jobs would be lost as well as 450,000 units of U.S. auto sales, CAR added that because Mexican-made vehicles are made of roughly 40% American parts on average, and American-made vehicles are made of about 12% Mexican parts, roughly 20,000 U.S. parts manufacturing jobs and 11,000 U.S. assembly jobs could be lost.
CAR stated, &#8220;Job losses would not be evenly distributed and would have an impact on individual automakers&#8217; and suppliers&#8217; capacity utilization, which could lead to plant closures and broader job impacts.&#8221;
As Crain&#8217;s Detroit Business <a href="http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20170118/NEWS/170119827/withdrawal-from-nafta-would-cost-u-s-manufacturing-jobs-study-finds">writes</a>:
<blockquote>
Bringing manufacturing jobs back from Mexico after withdrawing from NAFTA also would not be as simple as Trump might imagine it, according to the report. About 55 percent of Mexican-made vehicles were exported to the U.S. in 2016, according to IHS Markit. To make up for those lost vehicles in the U.S. market, automakers likely would choose to supply the U.S. with small cars from plants outside the NAFTA region, CAR said. Doing so would require the 10 largest auto manufacturers to add about 1 million units of production capacity to the U.S. to produce other models. In theory, that could add an estimated 22,200 jobs. However, since there is very little open capacity at U.S. auto plants, automakers would be required to build new capacity for as much as $6.5 billion, according to CAR. Additionally, &#8220;Canada serves as an obvious likely replacement source of capacity,&#8221; the report reads. &#8220;In fact, [the] current exchange rate makes Canadian labor costs lower than those in the United States.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Crain&#8217;s continued, &#8220;U.S. suppliers also could be threatened, as the U.S. exported $22 billion in parts to Canada in 2015 in addition to $20 billion to Mexico . . . Tariffs also would have a negative impact on U.S. dealers, according to the report, saying dealer employment could be negatively affected if automakers curb production or vehicle imports as a result.&#8221;
The report concludes, &#8220;If the U.S. leaves NAFTA, companies in Mexico and Canada may seek alternate, more affordable places to purchase these goods, such as China, India, and other regions with large, international U.S. competitors.&#8221;

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