U.S. Automotive and Dairy Industries Score in New Trade Deal
*By Carlo Versano*
Investors on Monday appeared to sign off on a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) agreement ー with the Dow closing up nearly 200 points, marking its second highest close ever.
Among the biggest winners from the deal was the U.S. dairy industry, said Lauren Gardner, reporter for POLITICO Pro Canada.
"The president seized on that after hearing from stakeholders in Wisconsin who were very unhappy with how the Canadian dairy market was being protected by that country," she said in an interview with Cheddar Monday. "Another front was autos...They didn't totally take tariffs off the table, but they did get Canada to agree to a higher cap."
Those stocks certainly seemed to respond in kind. Shares of General Motors ($GM) were up about 1.3 percent on Monday, while Ford ($F) rose a percent.
The market reaction came after the U.S. and Canada announced hours before a midnight deadline Sunday a framework for a deal that ー paired with a previous agreement from August between the U.S. and Mexico ー would replace NAFTA and deliver a policy win for President Trump one month before a crucial midterm election.
The deal, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), will include concessions from Canada for greater U.S. access to its dairy market. In exchange, the U.S. will modify its language on dispute settlements. The latest agreement also puts an end to over a year of tumultuous negotiations between the three countries.
It also creates new language for the tech industry, which was in its infancy when NAFTA was conceived in the early 90s. The new deal also requires automakers to build more cars in North America with higher-paid workers.
"It's a good day for Canada," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who reasserted himself in frantic negotiations over the weekend to close the deal, said Monday.
President Trump [tweeted](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1046714711268622336) his support early on Monday, saying the pact "will bring all three Great Nations together in competition with the rest of the world."
Mexico had been eager to have a deal in place before sitting president Enrique Pena Nieto leaves office and the president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador takes up the mantle on Dec. 1. The question remains stateside whether lawmakers in Congress will formally ratify the pact when they vote on it, likely in early 2019. That probability will shift further if Democrats, unwilling to hand a victory to the Trump administration, take the House in November.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
