US-Mexico-Canada deal targets China with 'poison pill' provision

The Trump administration has found a new tool in its trade battle with China: Using deals like the recent U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to try to freeze China out of creating its own deals with trading partners.

Tucked away at the very end of the USMCA deal, under “exceptions and general provisions,” is a section dubbed “Non-Market Country FTA.” It effectively nullifies the deal should any of the three member countries strike a trade deal with a country that “at least one Party has determined to be a non-market economy for purposes of its trade remedy laws.” A country like, say, China.