Without NAFTA the U.S. would have a trade surplus: Fmr. commerce secretary

Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Friday discussed President Trump’s negative comments toward Germany’s trade practices and why free trade agreements benefit the U.S.

Trump allegedly said during a NATO meeting on Thursday, “the Germans are bad, very bad,” when referring to Germany’s trade practices.

“Yes Germany has a trade surplus, they are a big manufacturing nation, very big on engineering and they are doing very well. But we’ve got to be careful with saying that anyone who’s got a surplus must be cheating because someone has to have a surplus here, not everyone is going to be flat,” he said to FOX Business’ Liz Claman.

Gutierrez believes the U.S. doesn’t need to lower its tariffs to promote trade.

“We are the most open nation in the world. So we have very low tariffs… We have to continue to promote trade elsewhere and continue to promote that others take their tariffs down,” he said.

Gutierrez explained how the U.S would have a surplus if it just relied on its free trade agreements.

“If you just take NAFTA out, which is 25 years old and look at all of the other free trade agreements that we have, we have a surplus,” he said.