North American trade pact on 3rd anniversary: Optimism is rising for US and Mexican workers

By PAUL WISEMAN, MARK STEVENSON and TOM KRISHER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — To President Donald Trump, America’s trade relationship with Mexico was intolerable. He seethed over the U.S. trade deficit and shuttered factories in America’s heartland. So Trump pressured Mexico and Canada to replace their mutual pact with one more to his liking: The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which will reach its third anniversary Saturday. The trade pact hasn’t proved to be the economic bonanza that Trump boasted it would be. Yet it has nevertheless been helping workers on the ground. It’s just that the beneficiaries have so far been mostly in Mexico. Trade officials and experts say, though, that they think the benefits will also flow, in time, to U.S. workers, who no longer must compete with severely underpaid Mexican laborers.