Monday 1 October 2018

"Canada agrees to join trade accord with U.S. and Mexico, sending new NAFTA deal to Congress."

WaPo headline. First 2 sentences of the article:
Canada agreed late Sunday to join the trade deal that the United States and Mexico reached last month, meeting negotiators’ self-imposed midnight deadline designed to allow the current Mexican president to sign the accord on his final day in office and giving President Trump a big win on trade.

The new treaty, preserving the three-country format of the original North American Free Trade Agreement favored by business groups and congressional Republicans, is expected to be signed by Trump and his Canadian and Mexican counterparts in 60 days, with Congress likely to act on it next year.
NYT headline: "U.S. and Canada Reach Trade Deal to Salvage Nafta." First 2 sentences of the article:
The United States and Canada reached a last-minute deal to salvage the North American Free Trade Agreement on Sunday, overcoming deep divisions to keep the 25-year-old trilateral pact intact.

The deal came after a weekend of frantic talks to try and preserve a trade agreement that has stitched together the economies of Mexico, Canada and the United States but that was on the verge of collapsing. 
In WaPo, it sounds like a new deal. In the NYT, it sounds like what we're getting is the preservation of the old deal.  The NYT makes it seem like a close call with disaster, and WaPo says the deadline is self-imposed and designed to make Trump look like he has a big win.

I suspect that both newspapers wanted to make Trump look like less of a success and they chose different approaches to diminishing him.

WaPo credits Trump with a "big win" in the first sentence. The NYT forefronts the stress. In the first few paragraphs: "a year of tense talks and strained relations," "frenetic Sunday." You'll have to wait for paragraph 6 to see "a win" for Trump:
The deal represents a win for President Trump, who has derided Nafta for years and threatened to pull the United States from the pact if it was not rewritten in America’s favor. Overhauling trade deals has been one of Mr. Trump’s top priorities as president and he has used tariffs and other threats to try and force trading partners to rewrite agreements in America’s favor. 
It's a "win" not a "big win," and maybe the Times isn't even conceding that it's a win. It only "represents a win." And Trump created all the disorder and threat on his own. He didn't critique NAFTA for any real problems. He "derided" it.
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