UK Trade Deal, NAFTA Renegotiation Should Be Priorities of New Administration, Chamber CEO Says
The incoming Trump administration should consider a trade deal with the United Kingdom, avoid creating new trade barriers and promote intellectual property protections around the world, U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue said at Jan. 11 event. “The president-elect says he wants to expand trade, and negotiate strong new trade deals for our country,” Donohue said during his annual “State of American Business” address. “I’m in. Let’s do it.” Trade deals under the Trump administration should lower trade barriers of other countries that block U.S. exports, should protect IP and digital industries through tough enforcement, and should ensure that U.S. investments abroad are protected by the rule of law “and a level playing field,” Donohue said. Trade policy in 2017 should increasingly consider how to better expand the benefits of trade to workers, he said. In the hopes of hearing how the chamber can benefit small businesses more effectively, chamber officials will travel away from the centers of New York and Washington to hold regional business conferences across the nation, Donohue said, part of a push to start a “grassroots army” with small and medium-sized business employees.
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Further, because the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes all three NAFTA parties, is dying, the incoming administration should immediately work on policy to establish leadership in the Asia-Pacific and renegotiate the 23-year-old NAFTA. During a press conference following his speech, Donohue said any renegotiation should first and foremost “do no harm,” and should incorporate provisions that leverage technological, transportation and data storage advancements made over the past two decades. Donohue also commended President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations for trade officials, mentioning Commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative nominee Robert Lighthizer by name, and calling Trump’s trade picks “serious people.”