Adjunct Professor Matt Gold was quoted in a WCBS News Radio article about NAFTA renegotiation under the Trump administration.
[M]att Gold was lead NAFTA negotiator in Obama administration. He said Mexico has the most skin in the game, so Canada stepped out for the first round of negotiations.
“Canada stepped out and just let the United States and Mexico sort of duke that out, and they’ll probably be on board with whatever the U.S. and Mexico agreed on,” Gold told WCBS 880’s Steve Scott and Michael Wallace.
Regardless of the name, the deal amounts to several tweaks to NAFTA, Gold said.
“I mean, they’ve been working on technical tweaks for a year, and there are actually a large number of changes that are very important to someone like me, who’s a trade expert, but which most Americans won’t ever even be aware of. But big changes are another story,” he said.
Gold said the Obama administration would have tried for big changes to NAFTA, but did not have the leverage to do so.
“The value of this large number of small changes, frankly, is small enough that the damage we did dragging Mexico and Canada kicking and screaming to the negotiating table, and the damage we did to our own economy with the uncertainty, is probably worse than the value of everything we’re getting, which is why I didn’t recommend to President Obama to do this renegotiation,” he said.
Gold also said Trump’s negotiating style is not appropriate for the international stage.
“I mean, President Trump believes that if he’s just incredibly obnoxious and bullying; if he violates his existing obligations under existing trade agreements or threatens to, that will gain him leverage. It’s not true. That does not work on the international stage the way it works for a developer strong-arming, you know, a marble subcontractor,” Gold said. “So frankly, Trump’s style really does not project the power that people voted for him expected it would, and he’s gotten a lot of retaliation in his face for things that he’s done trying to get leverage, and he hasn’t had the leverage he’s needed to get most of his big asks in this NAFTA renegotiation.”