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Trying to talk about foreign relations and foreign policy through the use of Twitter doesn't make sense, and is something Trump should not be doing. But I agree that I do not think it is harming the country in any way, him talking about it on Twitter.

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Jack Conklin
Trump is attempting to promote foreign policy through tweets. However, those who support him will continue to do so, just as people who hate him will still hate him.

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Parker Keiken - Trump is obviously trying to communicate his foreign policy through twitter. I do feel as though it doesn't put him in a good light very often because with everything going on in the trade war we are kind of getting the short end of the stick and letting China walk all over us.

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Trump is trying to promote his foreign policy within his tweets, I dont think it has a major impact on gaining him followers because of the fact that his opposers will hate his tweets while supporters will agree with them.

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I like how he is trying to make change in China and promote business in America but he also is letting China just kind of bully us and they are getting away with it. His idea was good but his plan of action was not.

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We can see Trump's foreign policy through his tweets. In Japan, we also have same problem between the U.S. as far as I remember and it does not seem really fair for us. I want him to think again about foreign policy.

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USMCA dead because of congress

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The president has made a trade agreement that caters to his opposition - and that's why it stands a chance of passing Congress.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that a deal on the new North American trade pact was close, but that a vote on it could slip into next year. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times

WASHINGTON - House Democrats return to Washington on Monday facing a difficult choice: Should they hand President Trump a victory in the midst of a heated impeachment battle or walk away from one of the most progressive trade pacts ever negotiated by either party?

The Trump administration agreed with Canada and Mexico on revisions to the North American Free Trade Agreement one year ago, but the deal still needs the approval of Congress. A handshake agreement with the administration in the coming days would give the Democratic caucus a tangible accomplishment on an issue that has animated its base. It could also give Democrats a chance to lock in long-sought policy changes to a trade pact they criticize as prioritizing corporations over workers, laying the groundwork for future trade agreements.

Those factors have coaxed Democrats to the table at an improbable moment, when Washington is split by partisan fights and deeply divided over an impeachment inquiry. After months of talks, including through the Thanksgiving break, both sides say they're in the final phase of negotiations. But Democrats insist the administration must make more changes to the labor, environmental and other provisions before Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California will bring legislation implementing the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to a vote.

"By any standard, what we've already negotiated is substantially better than NAFTA," said Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, who is heading the Democratic group negotiating with the administration. "Labor enforcement, in my judgment, is the last hurdle."

The deal presents a dilemma for Democrats because it contains measures they have supported for years, from requiring more of a car's parts to be made in North America to rolling back a special system of arbitration for corporations and strengthening Mexican labor unions.

In borrowing from the Democrats' playbook, the revised pact reflects Mr. Trump's populist trade approach - one that has blurred party lines and appealed to many of the blue-collar workers Democrats once counted among their base. It also reflects a broader backlash to more traditional free trade deals, which have been criticized for hollowing out American manufacturing and eliminating jobs.

"Taken as a whole, it looks more like an agreement that would've been negotiated under the Obama administration," said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and a former trade representative during the George W. Bush administration, who supports the pact. "There are some aspects to it that Democrats have been calling for, for decades."

In fact, it goes so far to the left of traditional Republican views on trade that some congressional Republicans only grudgingly support it - or may vote against the final deal.

Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, one of the most ardent Republican critics of the deal, has called the pact "a complete departure from the free trade agreements we've pursued through our history" and urged fellow Republicans to vote it down.

"If we adopt this agreement, it will be the first time that I know of in the history of the Republic that we will agree to a new trade agreement that is designed to diminish trade," Mr. Toomey said at a hearing in July, sitting next to a large red sign that said: "NAFTA > U.S.M.C.A."

Still, most Republicans have supported the pact and urged rapid action. If the deal is not approved soon, proponents fear it could become the target of more frequent attacks by Democratic presidential candidates, making it even more difficult for Democrats in Congress to vote for the pact.

Mr. Trump has spent weeks accusing Ms. Pelosi of being "grossly incompetent" and prioritizing impeachment over a trade deal that could benefit workers. "She's incapable of moving it," Mr. Trump said last week, warning that a "great trade deal for the farmers, manufacturers, workers of all types, including unions" could fall apart if the Democrats don't take action.

While long demonized by Mr. Trump, Democrats and labor unions, NAFTA has become critical to companies and consumers across North America, guiding commerce around the continent for a quarter century. Entire industries have grown up around the trade agreement, which allows goods like cars, avocados and textiles to flow tariff free among Canada, Mexico and the United States.

But Mr. Trump and other critics have blamed the deal for encouraging companies to move their factories to Mexico. The president has routinely called NAFTA the "worst trade deal ever made" and promised during his campaign that he would rewrite it in America's favor - or scrap it altogether.

The revised pact took over a year of rancorous talks to complete, resulting in a complex 2,082-page agreement covering a wide range of topics. While much of it simply updates NAFTA for the 21st century, it also contains changes intended to encourage manufacturing in the United States, including by raising how much of a car must be made in North America to qualify for zero tariffs.

The new agreement requires at least 70 percent of an automaker's steel and aluminum to be bought in North America, which could help boost United States metal production. And 40 to 45 percent of a car's content must be made by workers earning an average wage of $16 an hour. That $16 floor is an effort to force auto companies to either raise low wages in Mexico or hire more workers in the United States and Canada, an outcome Democrats have long supported.

It also rolls back a special system of arbitration for corporations that the Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has criticized as allowing companies to bypass the American legal system and Trump administration officials describe as an incentive for companies to send their factories abroad.

The pact also includes, at least on paper, provisions that aim to do away with sham Mexican labor unions that have done little to help workers by requiring every company in Mexico to seek worker approval of collective bargaining agreements by secret ballot in the next four years.

Some Democrats are skeptical that the Mexican government will allocate the necessary funds to ensure that companies are complying with these changes. But if the rules are enforced, Democrats say they may help stem the flow of jobs to Mexico and put American workers on a more equal footing.

Several sticking points remain, including a provision that offers an advanced class of drugs 10 years of protection from cheaper alternatives, which Democratic lawmakers say would lock in high drug prices.

Other Democratic proposals aim to add teeth to the pact's labor and environmental provisions. Democrats want to reverse a change made by the Trump administration that they say essentially guts NAFTA's enforcement system. They are also arguing for additional resources that would allow customs officials to inspect factories or stop goods at the border if companies violate labor rules.

Mr. Neal told reporters late last month that he believed House Democrats could soon work out their differences with Robert Lighthizer, Mr. Trump's trade representative.

Ms. Pelosi, who has continued to suggest that she wants to "get to yes" on the deal, responded to Mr. Trump's rebuke last week by saying that she needed to see the administration's commitments in writing before moving forward.

The agreement still has skeptics, including labor leaders and others on the left.

"Unless Donald Trump agrees to add stronger labor and environmental standards and enforcement, and secures progress on labor reforms in Mexico, NAFTA job outsourcing will continue," said Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "And the Big Pharma giveaways Trump added must go: They make U.S.M.C.A. worse than NAFTA."

But Democrats say that if the additional changes they are seeking get made, the deal would be more progressive than the original NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership - both of which were negotiated by Democratic administrations. Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership within days of taking office.

Jesús Seade, Mexico's chief negotiator for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, said many tweaks Democrats want are "improvements."

"If the amendments suggested are acceptable improvements, then there's no reason we should not be shaking hands next week," he said on Friday, after meeting with Canadian officials.

Some congressional Republicans, who generally oppose unions and believe the deal's new rules could burden auto companies, have been taken aback by how far the administration has gone to woo Democrats.

At a private lunch on June 11 at the Capitol, Republican senators peppered Vice President Mike Pence with questions about why the administration was not lobbying Democrats harder to back the deal. Mr. Pence claimed that it already had the support of 80 Democrats, a high number that caught some Republicans by surprise, according to a person familiar with the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"What's in it for Pelosi?" asked Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska.

Mr. Pence responded that the pact had the most aggressive labor and automotive standards ever put in a trade agreement - an admission for some Republicans in the room that it was the worst trade agreement they had been asked to support.

Jennifer Hillman, a trade expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said many of Mr. Lighthizer and Mr. Trump's views on trade "are basically borrowing what Democrats have said for many, many years."

"To the extent that Trump gained votes in the industrial Midwest, it was by espousing Democratic trade ideas," she said.

Throughout the negotiations, Mr. Lighthizer has kept up a steady dialogue with labor unions like the United Steelworkers and Democrats like Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Neal and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. At times, Mr. Lighthizer appeared more at odds with congressional Republicans and traditional allies like the Chamber of Commerce, who he said should give up "a little bit of the sugar" that had sweetened trade agreements for multinational corporations.

"If you can get some labor unions on board, Democrats on board, mainstream Republicans on board, I think you can get big numbers," Mr. Lighthizer said in January 2018. "If you do, that's going to change the way all of us look at these kind of deals."

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Trump's Trade Deal Steals a Page From Democrats' Playbook

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The president has made a trade agreement that caters to his opposition - and that's why it stands a chance of passing Congress. WASHINGTON - House Democrats return to Washington on Monday facing a difficult choice: Should they hand President Trump a victory in the midst of a heated impeachment battle or walk away from one of the most progressive trade pacts ever negotiated by either party?

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What impact does the president’s use of Twitter have on our country?

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What impact does the president’s use of Twitter have on our country?

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When he tweets he is prone to criticism. Depending on the topic, his tweets could be polarizing to the country or healing and optimistic. When it comes to trade, his tweets are not harmful to the country. Trump talks about how other countries abused the United States when it comes to trade. World leaders continue to work with Trump regardless of the attacking tweets Trump sometimes posts.

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President Trump with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea on Monday in New York. Credit... Tom Brenner for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - President Trump signed a revised free trade agreement with South Korea on Monday in New York, cementing the first bilateral trade deal of his administration and suggesting the United States could soon win similar agreements with other trading partners.

"It's a great day for the United States, and it's a great day for South Korea," Mr. Trump said during a meeting with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea.

The revised United States-Korea Trade Agreement includes steps to open up the Korean market to increased American exports, most notably for automobiles, and will allow the United States to continue imposing a 25 percent tariff on Korean trucks until 2041.

But analysts said there are few fundamental changes to the existing agreement, which was negotiated under President Barack Obama and which Mr. Trump has blamed for hundreds of thousands of lost American jobs. And they said the revised agreement includes few provisions that will appreciably change the trade balance between the two countries, which Mr. Trump has complained about.

For example: The agreement would double a cap on the number of American automobiles that may be easily exported to South Korea, to 50,000 from 25,000 a year per automaker. But no American automaker came close to reaching the existing, lower cap last year.

"The president referred to this deal as one of the worst agreements ever," said Wendy Cutler, a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, who helped negotiate the initial Korean agreement as a member of Mr. Obama's administration. "And if you look at what was agreed to, it doesn't seem to change the agreement dramatically."

"I view this as a win-win deal, some solid improvements," she added, "but nothing dramatic."

Business groups cheered the updated pact, but stopped well short of calling it transformational.

"Manufacturers were glad to see the president recommit himself to the U.S. trading partnership with Korea today," said Linda Dempsey, the vice president of international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers. "A robust U.S.-Korea F.T.A. is essential to the jobs of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing workers across America."

The United States' trade deficit in goods and services with South Korea had already been falling before the agreement was signed, to just above $9 billion last year from just under $17 billion in 2016, as the country increased purchases of machinery, liquefied natural gas and other goods from America. South Korea was also among the countries subjected to steel and aluminum tariffs, making those metals less lucrative to export to the United States.

The trade deal will exclude South Korea from the steel tariffs, in exchange for that country capping its exports to the United States at 70 percent of the average of its export levels from 2015 through 2017. Korea will still face the aluminum tariffs.

The revised agreement also lacks the robust "side deal" on currency manipulation that administration officials said would be included to prevent South Korea from weakening its currency, the won. Currency devaluation, as it is called, has been of particular concern to Mr. Trump, who has accused other trading partners, like China and the European Union, of trying to weaken their currencies so that Americans using the United States dollar can buy more of their products.

"We're going to be able to defend ourselves against currency undervaluations because, as part of this deal, there's a very nice side deal agreement that the secretary of Treasury is negotiating over currency undervaluation," Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser, told NPR in March. Mr. Navarro added that the currency agreement is "a benchmark for what we'll be doing going forward."

That side deal has yet to materialize. In August, the United States trade representative published the "agreed outcomes" from its negotiations with the Koreans: 24 pages of technical language and correspondence between officials from both countries, including agreements on American auto and prescription drug exports and Korean textile exports. There is no mention of currency in the agreement, or of any pending side deal.

In a fact sheet released Monday afternoon by the White House, Trump administration officials said that "outside" the Korea pact, "the Treasury Department has an understanding with South Korea to avoid competitive devaluation and practices that provide an unfair competitive advantage. The understanding includes strong commitments on exchange rate practices, robust transparency, and reporting."

Mr. Navarro did not immediately respond to questions on Monday about what that "understanding" comprises, and whether it is in writing.

Asked about the lack of a side deal this month, Treasury officials did not respond directly to questions whether it exists or will exist, saying instead that they are happy with the state of talks with the Koreans over currency.

"Building on existing discussions, the U.S. Treasury and Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance intend to meet frequently to discuss concerns arising from macroeconomic and foreign exchange policies," a Treasury spokesman said in response to questions about the promised currency provisions.

"We welcome the Korean government's recent announcement that it will begin disclosing information on intervention in the foreign exchange markets," he said, adding that "both countries continue to maintain a market-oriented exchange rate and are avoiding currency manipulation."

Some Democrats say the lack of a firm currency commitment in the Korea deal is a worrying sign given the administration's continuing renegotiation of trade deals with Mexico and Canada, as well as its strategy with China.

"The White House went on record in March touting a currency deal with Korea that, it turns out, does not exist," said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee.

The Trump administration has been accused of overpromising on trade agreements before. This year, it announced a big victory with the European Union with a deal that was vastly similar to what had already been negotiated by the previous administration.

The agreement does not need congressional approval to take effect. But it still must clear political hurdles in South Korea - a process that could get complicated, Ms. Cutler said, if Mr. Trump's administration recommends new tariffs on foreign-made automobiles, which could hit Korean automakers particularly hard. Mr. Trump has continually threatened to impose tariffs on cars and car parts, though he has yet to put those into effect.

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WASHINGTON - President Trump signed a revised free trade agreement with South Korea on Monday in New York, cementing the first bilateral trade deal of his administration and suggesting the United States could soon win similar agreements with other trading partners.

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@realdonaldtrump "China’s top trade negotiators are in the U.S. meeting with our representatives. Meetings are going well with good intent and spirit on both sides. China does not want an increase in Tariffs and feels they will do much better if they make a deal. They are correct."

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"Despite the unnecessary and destructive actions taken by the Fed, the Economy is looking very strong, the China and USMCA deals are moving along nicely, there is little or no Inflation, and USA optimism is very high!"

The Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada is a signed but not ratified free trade agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

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@RealDonaldTrump:
The United States must, at long last, be treated fairly on Trade. If we charge a country ZERO to sell their goods, and they charge us 25, 50 or even 100 percent to sell ours, it is UNFAIR and can no longer be tolerated. That is not Free or Fair Trade, it is Stupid Trade!

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@realdonaldtrump "When a car is sent to the United States from China, there is a Tariff to be paid of 2 1/2%. When a car is sent to China from the United States, there is a Tariff to be paid of 25%. Does that sound like free or fair trade?  No, it sounds like STUPID TRADE -  going on for years!"