Vote: What do you want out of the NAFTA negotiations?

For more than 20 years, NAFTA has bound the United States, Canada and Mexico into a $1.1 trillion trading bloc. Washington’s 2016 merchandise exports to Canada totaled more than $7 billion and to Mexico nearly $2 billion.

Now the agreement is being renegotiated at the demand of President Donald Trump. “Canada is no problem,” Trump has said. But he has had a contentious position toward Mexico going back to his campaign. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said, “We feel that NAFTA has fundamentally failed many, many Americans and needs major improvement.” Trump backed off threats to China, which has cost far more U.S. manufacturing jobs. But he has far more leverage over Mexico.

The administration released a long list of its aspirations for the new NAFTA. Trump wants more manufacturing in the United States and a lower trade deficit. He’s also threatened to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the agreement. As a developer, Trump is accustomed to win-lose deals, rather than the win-win (at the macro level) of trade. Here’s a primer of what each country wants.

The best Mexico and Canada can hope for is to limit the damage — something on the minds of many U.S. companies with highly integrated North American supply chains, especially automakers. What do you want? As always, I welcome your comments in the section below.

The poll has expired. Thank you for your submissions.

This Week’s Links:

• NAFTA in a multi-polar world economy | Tim Taylor

• The Amazon effect echoes across the industry | Digiday

• The lost lesson of the financial crisis | Mohamed El-Erian

• The imaginary debt crisis is here to stay | Barry Ritholtz

• Nearly all U.S. trade deals were negotiated by Republicans | Peterson Institute

• Why the Federal Reserve’s job will get harder | Larry Summers

• The Republican retreat from market-based regulation | Mark Thoma

NOTED: Washington posted one of the nation’s largest year-over-year increases in jobs for July, up 2.2 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For states with similar population, Arizona rose 1.2 percent and Massachusetts increased 1.3 percent.

Today’s Econ Haiku:

CEOs to Trump:

You can’t fire us, we quit, sir.

The lobbyists stay