During his election campaign in 2016, US President Donald Trump promised to shake up global trade and bring down America’s growing trade deficits. Now relationships with all but one of the United States' top ten 2018 trading partners has been thrown into uncertainty, and there is no clear road-map for when new trade agreements may be finalised.

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The United States has been embroiled in a tit-for-tat trade war for 17 months with its once-largest trading partner. Trump said Tuesday here he had "no deadline" for the deal, and that he likes "the idea of waiting until after" the US 2020 presidential election, sending stock markets tumbling.

US-China bilateral trade accounted for 15.7 percent of US trade in goods during 2018, when it was the largest US trading partner. US-China trade has since shrunk to third place behind that with Mexico and Canada, making up 13.5 percent of total trade in 2019 through September.

Mexico and Canada

The Trump administration renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with its neighbours in 2018. But the deal has yet to be passed by the US Congress, where Democrats want for more protections for workers and changes that may lead to cheaper drug prices, leaving the future of the three-country, $1.2 trillion open trade zone uncertain.

European Union

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on auto imports from the European Union. Trump missed a deadline here to decide on the tariffs, but has not withdrawn his tariff threat as negotiations fail to gain traction.

Separately, the USTR said Monday it would review raising tariffs on more EU products, without specifics, after the World Trade Organization affirmed that aid to planemaker Airbus continues to harm the US aerospace industry. And The US Trade Representative’s office unveiled a $2.4 billion tariff list of imports from France, including cheese, handbags and Champagne, as punishment for France’s new digital services tax.

The EU was America’s top export market in 2018, with purchases of $319 billion in US goods and $256 billion in US services. EU members Germany, France, Britain and Italy were among the top 10 US trading partners in 2018.

Japan

Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signed a limited trade deal in September that would grant more access to Japan for some $7 billion in US agriculture products, including beef and pork, in exchange for lowering US tariffs on some industrial goods. But the deal did not include autos, the biggest source of the $67 billion US goods trade deficit in 2019.

Although Abe says he has been assured that Japan will not face car tariffs as Washington and Tokyo resume negotiations next year, Trump has not eliminated the threat of such duties.

India

The United States in July eliminated India’s trade benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences, affecting some $5.6 billion worth of exports, amid disputes over India’s new digital trade restrictions and alleged trade barriers for US medical devices and other products.

Negotiations to resolve the issues and lower some of India’s high tariffs for farm goods, motorcycles and industrial goods, have failed to result in an interim deal thus far.

South Korea

The only completed and implemented trade deal that Trump’s administration has negotiated has been a minor revamp of the US-Korean Free Trade Deal last year. The deal allows the United States to maintain its 25 percent truck tariff for another 20 years instead of phasing it out in 2021, while reducing some Korean regulatory barriers to car imports from the United States.

First Published:Dec 4, 2019 9:45 AM IST