Can Democrats' House takeover bring meaningful change in US trade policy?

One of the first items of business in January after the new Congress gets sworn in will be the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the midterm elections was that, unlike 2016, there wasn’t one. Polls and pundits expected Democrats would take control of the House and Republicans would keep the Senate, and that’s exactly what we’re getting.

The likely result: two years of congressional gridlock on economic policy, which requires both houses of Congress to agree on the same legislation. So, we can expect that the status quo on economic policy will mostly prevail.

There are, however, two economic issues on which the election outcome will make a meaningful difference: trade and infrastructure.

NAFTA lives

One of