Trump Just Lost His First Big Trade Battle Against Mexico
So, when does all the winning start?
That’s what Trump supporters are asking today, after the World Trade Organization handed the President a defeat in a major trade dispute over Mexican tuna imports.
Mexico filed a complaint with the WTO back in 2008, accusing the U.S. of illegally applying its ‘dolphin safe’ laws to restrict Mexico’s tuna from entering the U.S. market. Mexico insists their tuna is dolphin safe, and that the application of that law amounted to thinly veiled protectionism.
The WTO agreed, clearing the way today for trade sanctions totaling $163 million a year against the Trump Administration. That’s what the international trading body calculates the improper U.S. restrictions cost Mexico in tuna exports.
According to CNN, “Mexico’s economic ministry said it would immediately take actions to reclaim the $163 million the WTO said it had lost from the US restrictions.”
Tired of winning yet, Trump supporters? Is it just too much winning for you?
Wasn’t this exactly the kind of easy victory Trump promised? Didn’t the President say he’d hire the best negotiators to win cases just like this? Aren’t defeats at the negotiating table the product of ‘stupid people’ leading us?
This isn’t foreign policy, or moving legislation through congress, or any of the other complex maneuvering that trip-up even the most experienced presidents.
This is trade, deal making, negotiating – the one arena where even Trump’s most fervent critics acknowledged his aptitude and experience. And STILL he got his ass handed to him.
As his administration’s 100 day mark draws near, it’s time to start asking: If Trump can’t even win at the one thing he’s relatively good at, then how do his supporters expect him to win at anything more complicated than tuna?
