Trump brags he created jobs with a deal that isn't even law yet

Responding to a Twitter post from Toyota touting investment in American manufacturing, Trump took a victory lap.

“Congratulations @Toyota! BIG NEWS for U.S. Auto Workers! The USMCA is already fixing the broken NAFTA deal,” he wrote.

But there’s a problem with that — the deal is not law, nor has it even come to a vote in Congress.

USMCA (the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) has not been ratified by Congress, as is required of all international agreements.

“Congress has not ratified the USMCA,” said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), mocking the embarrassing pronouncement from Trump. Rush also noted reports that Trump has deferred to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s schedule for when a vote can be presented on it.

USMCA has also not been ratified by the legislatures in Mexico or Canada.

Trump appears to believe the signing ceremony he had with Mexican President Enrique Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is all he needs. Or he is lying.

Meanwhile, Trump’s trade war policy, which has been implemented, has been devastating to farmers and a multibillion-dollar drain on the American economy.

Trump loves to take victory laps for job announcements (and far too often much of the press has been happy to play along).

Before he was sworn in, he and Mike Pence patted themselves on the back for arranging millions of tax dollars to go to Carrier in Indiana. But at the end of the day, the deal did not prevent thousands of jobs from going overseas.

Similarly, Trump worked with then-Wisconsin governor Scott Walker to hand $4 billion in subsidies to Foxconn, promising that the promised facility would be a jobs bonanza. The deal was a complete flop and the factory is not being built. The company gets to keep the money, however.

Trump is a terrible dealmaker who touts “The Art of the Deal,” but more often than not he’s ended up putting America on the losing side of bets. He can’t work out deals with foreign adversaries, businesses, or governments.

So whenever he can, he just makes up lies and misleads about how the deal that isn’t even on the books is “already fixing” things. It ends up just being embarrassing for America and another humiliation for Trump.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.