What Trump's new North American trade deal actually does

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump signed a revamped trade agreement with Mexico and Canada into law Wednesday, he kept a campaign pledge to improve upon a deal that he had long condemned.

His U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaces a 26-year-old version that he and other critics said was a job-killing disaster for the United States. The president's overhaul is designed to update the pact to reflect the rise of e-commerce and other technological changes and to do more to encourage factories to move production to the United States or keep it there.

But the USMCA doesn’t represent a revolutionary change in regional trade or assure that many Americans stand to receive financial gains. What it does, more than anything, is restore certainty to $1.4 trillion-a-year in North American commerce. And in that way, it could provide some economic benefit.

Here are some questions and answers about the new deal:

WHAT IS USMCA?

The pact is Trump’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994. NAFTA slashed tariffs and erased most trade barriers within the continent. In doing so, NAFTA unleashed a burst of trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico.

In the wake of NAFTA, American farmers, in particular, enjoyed increased access to their neighbors’ large markets. But NAFTA also encouraged U.S. manufacturers to move factories south of the border to capitalize on cheaper Mexican labor.

Supporters of the deal said it created a powerful regional bloc — a competitive counter to Europe and East Asia — with each NAFTA country able to take advantage of its strengths: In Mexico, low-cost manufacturing. In the United States and Canada, high-skilled labor and proximity to cutting-edge research.

Trump demanded a revamped deal that...