Tim Miller, a former Republican Party worker, criticized US President Donald Trump’s approach regarding the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), considering that Trump is retreating from an agreement that he previously described as the “best deal” he had concluded.
Miller said, during his participation in “The Bullwark” podcast, that the Trump administration decided not to renew the agreement, even though the US President had negotiated it and boasted about it during his first term.
“It is strange that they will not renew the best trade agreement ever,” he added, noting that the administration is moving toward annual reviews that Trump may use to pressure the leaders of Mexico and Canada.
In Miller’s opinion, abandoning the agreement in its current form and replacing it with an annual review mechanism may reflect negatively on American farmers, especially those who supported Trump.
“It’s one blow after another for farmers, and every one of Trump’s policies seems to be an elaborate plot to see how much he can anger farmers while continuing to raise his numbers in rural America,” he said.
For her part, New Yorker writer Susan Glaser agreed with this assessment, considering that Trump is testing the extent of his supporters’ adherence to him even when he backs down from policies that were supposed to be in their interest.
Glaser said that Trump “likes to show that his loyal supporters will remain by his side no matter how much he insults them, and no matter how much he fails to achieve what he promised them,” considering that for him this represents “absolute political victory.”
