Hoo boy. Where to begin with what you don't know. OK, here's one thing. Just one. The main thing that Trump fails to understand about trade and jobs is that it isn't the jobs... it's the wages. NAFTA was originally just a daydream of Ronald Reagan. He wondered what the US could do to raise wages in Mexico so that they could grow a middle class and stop coming here.
Because corporate interests lobbied the original terms so hard, wages were an afterthought when they first signed it. Later, the idea of better wages came back around and the people who administer that agreement made some changes. Exactly the change that Reagan had dreamed up. Wages in Mexico started to go up and immigration finally stopped increasing. Ten Years Ago!
Ten Years Ago chart. Here's the source.
Anyway... the existing trade agreement was beginning to work well. Now, thanks to Trump, Mexico will be shopping for new trading partners and not just for avocados. They will be shopping for partners in their quickly growing manufacturing hubs and they have a BIG advantage. Mexican wages are still lower than in the US.
