So a day I predicted would never come is here, and it looks like House Democrats are going to vote next week to pass Trump's NAFTA 2. Thread...
At least one thing I predicted was true, which is that - if top Dems could get aligned with Trump - the technicalities of the Fast Track timeline wouldn't matter much.
And also when I said that if this happened it would disprove prominent social science theories of the policy process. Here the trade silo overcame having bad problem definition, weak solutions, and unfavorable politics.
That's one reason people outside of the trade silo think this is all just bananas. 
So what did Democrats get? Unquestionably, there are some improvements relative to the Trump baseline - though these are mostly about scaling back ways Trump wanted to be even more generous to corporations than NAFTA already was.
waysandmeans.house.gov/media-center/p…
waysandmeans.house.gov/media-center/p…
And there's new stuff on Mexican labor rights, though it still doesn't remedy the double standard where (some) investors get to self-enforce their rights but labor doesn't.
politico.com/agenda/story/2…
politico.com/agenda/story/2…
Normatively, I don't think this new NAFTA was a good model or one that progressives should want to own.
rooseveltinstitute.org/statement-trum…
rooseveltinstitute.org/statement-trum…
And the administration is proclaiming that "This will be the model for American trade deals going forward."
ustr.gov/about-us/polic…
ustr.gov/about-us/polic…
Who is the constituency that feels great about this model and wants it to be a template? It's not got a lotta love on the GOP side of the aisle either.
Economically, the official projections show the deal to be a net loser - unless you accept imaginary numbers that show US investors will gain from "certainty" that Mexico and Canada won't introduce new regulations.
rooseveltinstitute.org/roosevelt-fell…
rooseveltinstitute.org/roosevelt-fell…
Politically, I don't see what Dems' three-dimensional chess gets them. Trump will say it's a win, the presidential candidates will be put in an impossible position, and left having to explain what provisions like this help the lives of ordinary voters.
