Modernizing Trade

In 2020, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after years of renegotiation, triggered by the first Trump Presidency. Despite resistance from Canadian and Mexican officials, and concern from trade experts, the final outcome was celebrated as a model of “modernized” trade. Building on and departing from existing Marxist and political economy approaches, the authors argue that the renegotiation lacked a clear material objective, even while it produced significant material outcomes. The USMCA not only added some gains for capital (e.g., chapters on digital trade and good regulatory practices) but also included unprecedented changes around investment rights and labour, that capital has long resisted. Analysing both agreements through the lens of trade fetishism, they argue the renegotiation opened doors for progressive groups to demand changes that had previously been rejected by liberal and conservative governments—even if met by ongoing efforts to reassert mastery and foreclosure around a refetishized trade vision. The unavoidable contradictions in trade policy require attention to the interplay of material and libidinal agency, involving unconscious processes around disavowal, mastery, and foreclosure, which play an often pivotal role in the political economy of trade.