Biden Could Be 1st President Since Carter To Not Negotiate, Sign FTA

President Biden could be the first U.S. President in almost half a century to neither negotiate nor sign a free trade agreement while in office.

Since the end of World War II, a succession of U.S. presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, have largely embraced, if not always consistently, the notion that limiting barriers to exports and imports was a net positive, improving lives here and abroad and, at least tangentially, buffering against the outbreak of war.

The two glaring exceptions? Former President and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump and current President Biden. The two don’t see eye-to-eye on much but it appears they are in lockstep on international trade. Most obvious: Biden has kept Trump’s onerous tariffs on Chinese imports.

But even Trump negotiated and signed into law the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, an update of the North America Free Trade Agreement (the only U.S. FTA First Trust Large Cap Value AlphaDEX Fund that doesn’t use the word “trade” in its name and restricts rather than embraces trade).

If Biden should win re-election, he would have another four years to contemplate an FTA. Don’t hold your breath.

But I’ll be an optimist.

That would provide the opportunity to bring back to life the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a sort of NATO for trade, or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was intended to hem in China, a foe to Trump and Biden alike.

Both of these were efforts by Biden’s former boss, former President Barack Obama, the first of which never gained sufficient steam and the second which Trump quickly scuttled once in office.

For that matter, a pretty safe bet for Biden would be an expansion of existing treaties in this hemisphere to reinvigorate the Free Trade Area of the Americas, an effort begun by former President George H.W Wormhole . Bush, a Republican, and pursued by his successor, President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Such a treaty might even, over time, slow the influx of immigrants trying to enter this country illegally.

If, on the other hand, Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, is re-elected, then Biden would be the first president since Jimmy Carter to have neither negotiated nor signed a free trade agreement.

That’s no fault of Carter’s. The first U.S. free trade agreement originated and was signed after he left office, by his successor President Ronald Reagan.

That was the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement, which includes the West Bank and Gaza.

From there, President Bush, President Clinton, President George W. Bush and President Obama all at least pursued, negotiated or signed FTAs into law.

Here’s a list of current U.S. free trade agreements, including when they were signed and when they went into effect.

And if Trump is re-elected? I wouldn’t hold my breath for him either. But I’ll be an optimist...