Posted on 05/11/2018 5:23:40 AM PDT by reaganaut1
The Trump administration will soon unveil a “new” North American Free Trade Agreement. U.S. trade negotiators have sought, among other things, to limit its duration, impose new domestic content requirements on certain products, and weaken investor legal protections. Even with these protectionist features, congressional Democrats are unlikely to vote for President Trump’s Nafta 2.0. He will need the support of pro-trade Republicans like me to ensure passage of any new agreement.
To pressure us into voting for an agreement that diminishes free trade, some in the administration suggest offering a grim choice: either approve a diminished Nafta, or the president will unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the existing Nafta, leaving no Nafta at all.
If presented with this ultimatum, I will vote “no,” urge my colleagues to do likewise, and oppose any effort by the administration to withdraw unilaterally. Pulling out of Nafta by executive fiat would be economically harmful and unconstitutional.
The Framers reserved trade policy for Congress, which has the express authority to establish tariffs and regulate commerce with foreign nations. A president who unilaterally withdrew from Nafta would be directly regulating foreign commerce, imposing significant disruptions on the economy, and infringing on Congress’s status as a coequal branch of government.
There have been instances when presidents have unilaterally terminated treaties. They claimed to be using significant inherent and implied powers on international affairs. But as Justice Anthony Kennedy stated in a 2015 decision, these executive powers aren’t “unbounded.” And none of the handful of treaties that have been terminated unilaterally were principally commercial in nature.
Unilateral executive withdrawal would amount to the president creating new law by himself. Nafta became operative when Congress passed implementing legislation in 1993.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
You support all the Bush League Republicans and want someone else in 2020.
You have made yourself clear that you do not support MAGA.
Toomey is definitely GOPe
Primary him out.
He supports gun control and no border control or interior enforcement.
If we do not get rid of the Bush League Republicans they WILL give away our country.
I support President Trump over Toomey 24/7.
NAFTA sucks!
It was designed to diminish America’s wealth & manufacturing.
Anyone who supports NAFTA IMO is not supporting MAGA at all!
Especially since the Wall Street Journal has been a mouthpiece of the Cheap Labor Express for decades.
Conservative Review is not the benchmark I would use.
Levin believes that Anwar Al-Awlaki’s kids born in Yemen to one citizen parent are eligible to be President of the USA.
That's a good way to make sure that seat goes to the Democrats for at least two decades.
I don’t think you really understand NAFTA at all, but then maybe that’s expecting too much on a political website where rants make for better reading than clear thinking. LOL.
Pat Toomey is a total RINO of course he loves NAFTA.
I checked his Conservative Union score just to see if there is a correlation. His 2017 score was 84% along with Rubio, Crapo, Risch, and Moran. What is remarkable is Flake got a 92% rating, up from last year's rating of 79%. If you look at those ratings, there are 5 groups at the top. Toomey is in the 5th group from the top. Toomey is actually down in the 2017 rating from 96% in 2016. For Pennsylvania, he is pretty good.
If you looked at McCain's rating of 57%, then you have something. It would be interesting to see Toomey's score for 2018.
What do you expect? The big money donors to the GOP are still open border, free trade types... they happily extract and export america’s wealth and take a cut for their back pocket.
Toomey stating he wants NAFTA as is, is beyond stupid.... Especially in the upper midwest where folks have been watching their towns go down the crapper for decades now thanks to “Free Trade”.
What are the modifications to the new NAFTA that Toomey finds so offensive?... He really doesn’t offer a reason... other than tired old “free trade” mantra that destroyed those folks homes in the first place.
Nah just have Santorum run again, so he can lose by 20+ points again.
“I don’t think you really understand NAFTA at all, but then maybe that’s expecting too much on a political website where rants make for better reading than clear thinking.”
Thanks for that lovely fallacy & have a nice day anyway.
NAFTA is bad for America but good for China, IMO.
I prefer our trade policies be good for America 1st.
Do you think there's a possibility Toomey knows a few things about the state he represents?
Someone who is an open-borders advocate, for example, might get higher "conservative" rating than someone who wants to restrict immigration.
The same goes for defense spending. I don't think there's anything conservative about pissing away hundreds of billions of dollars on a U.S. military that hasn't been operating under constitutional constraints in decades.
Worth considering, hasn't America carried the mother lode in that organization since its inception?
“Do you think there’s a possibility Toomey knows a few things about the state he represents? “
I never presume to know what someone else does or does not know.
I'd also suggest that it's not outlandish for a U.S. Senator to defend a trade agreement with his own state's two largest export trading partners.
I want America out of NAFTA, period.
Any GOP senator who wants NAFTA to continue can piss up a rope for all I care.
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