Opinion: Trump’s Nafta is like a bacon sandwich

Also: Insults for women at the trade deal’s news conference. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Tuesday, October 2, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist The main thing to know about the big new North American trade deal is that it’s not actually a new trade deal. It’s a set of modest revisions to Nafta — the old deal — and President Trump is exaggerating their significance so he can claim to have replaced Nafta. “I made a wonderful new sandwich by adding Lettuce and Tomato to Bacon and some bread,” [the historian Kevin Kruse tweeted](. “I’m calling it the LTB!” And what about the modest revisions to the deal? They’re a mix of good and bad, as [Matthew Yglesias of Vox notes](. The bad include changes that make trade more bureaucratically cumbersome. The deal expands some [needlessly complex]( patent rules. It also has a version of a sunset clause, which may force future rounds of trade talks, [as Gustavo Flores-Macías and Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer explain in The Times](. The good include changes to automobile-industry rules that could shift more manufacturing to higher-wage factories, which could help workers. Unfortunately, those new automobile rules also are an example of a widespread problem with economic policy: They do not include inflation adjustments. This sounds like a wonky issue, I realize, but it’s actually a big deal. When a policy doesn’t adjust for inflation, it often builds in its own effective demise. That’s why [the federal minimum wage]( has lost a lot of value in recent decades and why [alcohol taxes have lost much of their bite](. In the case of Nafta 2.0, the deal calls for a larger share of auto jobs to be in factories that pay production workers at least $16 an hour. But as [The Times’s Jim Tankersley notes]( $16 an hour won’t be worth as much in the future as it is today. Related: Annie Lowrey of The Atlantic makes [the succinct case]( for higher alcohol taxes, and the economist Philip Cook has made a much longer case, in an excellent book called “[Paying the Tab.”]( ‘Not thinking.’ Trump mocked two female reporters during his news conference on the trade deal yesterday, telling one, “You’re not thinking. You never do.” The insult fits a pattern, [Amber Phillips of The Washington Post]( explains: “When Trump wants to attack women, he often resorts to stereotypes, reducing women to their looks or their intellect (or supposed lack of it) in many instances.” As [Shannon Watts]( the gun-safety advocate, noted, referring to Trump’s advisers: “Please note the mostly (white) men standing behind the President in the Rose Garden who laugh and smirk as he insults the women who are trying to do their jobs.” F.B.I. investigation. [Trump’s decision yesterday]( to allow the F.B.I. to decide how to conduct the brief investigation of Brett Kavanaugh is good news. It doesn’t guarantee fairness, by any means. Much of the investigation remains shrouded from public view or accountability. But the change increases the chances that the Senate will have more information when it votes on the nomination. The full Opinion report from The Times follows. [All the Ways a Justice Kavanaugh Would Have to Recuse Himself]( Erin Schaff for The New York Times By LAURENCE H. TRIBE Given his blatant partisanship and personal animosity toward liberals, how could he be an effective member of the Supreme Court? From Our Columnists [The Angry White Male Caucus]( By PAUL KRUGMAN Trumpism is all about the fear of losing traditional privilege. [Save Us, Texas]( By MICHELLE GOLDBERG Beto O’Rourke offers hope in dark times. The Conversation [What Has Brett Kavanaugh Done to Us?]( By FRANK BRUNI AND ROSS DOUTHAT No matter what the F.B.I. finds, he will color the midterms, 2020, institutional trust and partisan warfare going forward. [The Strongman vs. the Prisoner vs. the Mountain Hermit]( [Hundreds of thousand of Brazilians demonstrated against the extreme right-wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro with the motto #EleNão (#NotHim) in Sao Paulo on Saturday.]( Hundreds of thousand of Brazilians demonstrated against the extreme right-wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro with the motto #EleNão (#NotHim) in Sao Paulo on Saturday. Gustavo Basso/NurPhoto, via Getty Images By VANESSA BARBARA Brazilian presidential politics have spiraled into chaos. What’s a voter to do? [Toward a Smaller American Footprint on Okinawa]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The Japanese island’s new governor wants American forces to leave. It’s time for Washington and Tokyo to find a compromise. ADVERTISEMENT LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. Watch Our 2018 Emmy-Award-Winning Op-Doc [Long Live Benjamin]( By ALLEN HIRSCH What happens when man’s best friend is a capuchin monkey? More in Opinion [Worse Than Nafta]( By GUSTAVO A. FLORES-MACÍAS AND MARIANO SÁNCHEZ-TALANQUER The new deal undermines investor certainty and makes disputes between the United States and Mexico more likely. [What Is the Point of War?]( By JOE QUINN An Army veteran responded to readers’ comments about the lessons he learned deploying in Afghanistan and Iraq after losing his brother in 9/11. Fixes [The Power of Student Peer Leaders]( By DAVID BORNSTEIN An organization is using the influence that teenagers have on their contemporaries to help more students from low-income families gain college admission and student aid. SIGN UP FOR THE OP-DOCS NEWSLETTER Find out about new [Op-Docs]( read discussions with filmmakers and learn more about upcoming events. ADVERTISEMENT letters [Awaiting the Outcome of the Kavanaugh Fight]( Readers accuse the judge of lying and discuss the fallout of the hearings. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. 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