Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said Sunday the new trade deal with Mexico and Canada is "the wrong direction to go on trade."
In an interview on NBC News' "Meet The Press," Toomey said NAFTA has been good for his state and the nation.
"It's a free and fair trade agreement. It is completely reciprocal. There is zero tariffs on manufactured goods, zero tariffs on almost all agricultural goods," he pointed out.
"So you have this free and fair reciprocal agreement which, by the way, resulted in a 500% increase in American exports to Mexico, Pennsylvania exports. Somehow this was unacceptable to the administration, and I think we should ask the question 'why?'
"The reason is because we were importing even more from Mexico than we sell to them. We had a trade deficit, we have a trade deficit with Mexico. And the purpose of renegotiating NAFTA was to diminish trade with Mexico, so as to diminish the deficit. That's the wrong direction to go on trade."
He also said he disagrees with President Donald Trump’s assertion that trade deficits are a good thing.
"The president's mistaken on this," he said, adding: "Trade deficits don't matter. That money gets reinvested back into the United States. So unfortunately, USMCA is an exercise through all kinds of new provisions to diminish trade, and that's why I hope Republicans reconsider this. We have historically recognized we're all better off with more open markets."
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