Trump's stalled trade agenda leaves industries in the lurch

Donald J Trump promised Americans that they would be exhausted from “winning” on trade under his presidency. But nearly seven months after Trump took office, the industries he vowed to protect have become tired of something else: waiting.
 
After beginning his presidency with a bang by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact in January, Trump has accomplished little else of significance when it comes to reorienting deals with other countries. Instead, his administration has been struggling to work through the complicated rules that dictate international commerce. All the while, they are learning that bold campaign promises are hard to keep when many voices advocate different plans.

 
For many businesses that had raised their hopes, frustration is mounting by the day.
 

America’s steelworkers are on edge as they wait for Trump to fulfill his promise to place tariffs on steel imports. Home builders are desperate for the president to cut a deal with Canada to end a dispute over its softwood lumber exports. And cattle ranchers are longing for a bilateral pact with Japan to ease the flow of beef exports.
 
“It’s frustrating because of the impact it’s having on the industry,” said Leo W Gerard, president of United Steelworkers International union, of the delayed outcome of a highly anticipated steel investigation. “It’s creating a crisis that’s being exacerbated.”

 
The commerce department was poised to deliver a report to Trump by the end of June with recommendations for steel tariffs, on the ground that cheap imports pose a national security threat. But the process became bogged down when industries that buy steel objected and other countries threatened retaliation. Trump said recently that dealing with steel was no longer a top priority, and Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, signaled to members of Congress in briefings last month that a decision was no longer imminent.
 
Dithering may have made the situation worse for American steel producers. Gerard said foreign competitors had been flooding the United States market with steel products in anticipation of the tariffs. Some of this is happening in parts of the country that voted for Trump. “This has been a bit of a letdown in the industrial heartland,” said Gerard, who is based in Pittsburgh. “A lot of our members supported the president because of what he said about steel and manufacturing.”

 
But steel only scratches the surface.
 
One accomplishment that Trump has notched on trade has been an agreement with China that opened its market to American beef exports. For the beef industry, however, the benefits of that deal pale in comparison with the cost of abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which had been spearheaded by President Barack Obama. It would have provided access to the enormous Japanese market.
 
Instead, Japanese tariffs on American frozen beef, which would have declined under Mr. Obama’s deal, are on the rise. Last week, they increased to 50 per cent from 38 percent, making America’s meat even more vulnerable to competition from countries such as Australia.

 
“TPP was fantastic,” said Kent Bacus director of international trade for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “When you walk away from it without a meaningful alternative, that causes a lot of alarm in the beef industry.”
 
Despite the delays, the pace of action on trade is expected to pick up soon. In the coming days, the United States trade representative is expected to unveil a trade case accusing China of extensive violations of intellectual property. On 16 August the United States, Mexico and Canada are to begin talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump threatened this year to terminate before reversing course.

 
The Trump administration has made the renegotiation of trade agreements central to its strategy for economic growth. Reducing trade deficits with other countries is one of its measures of success. Informed by his background in the real estate business, Trump has maintained that bilateral trade deals are simpler and more likely to benefit the United States than the multilateral pacts like Nafta or the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
 
Likewise, Ross made clear during testimony before the Senate this year that the days of vast multinational trade deals were over. He argued that pacts between two countries would be negotiated faster than regional agreements.

 
“As somebody who has negotiated a lot of transactions, I can tell you,” he said, “the more complex the environment within which you’re negotiating, the less likely you are to get to a sensible result.” Stephen Moore, the Heritage Foundation economist who advised Trump’s campaign, said bilateral trade deals were attractive to the president because they allowed the United States to use its economic scale to its advantage over smaller countries.
 
“Trump’s view on trade is to use leverage to require countries to do things we want them to do and use trade as a bargaining chip,” Mr. Moore said.