NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) is dead! No, it is still alive, or might be if only Canada and Mexico would come to their senses! And the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), dead last week, might also be alive, at least for a few days, if Japan really wants us in! No, on second thought, cancel that. And that new trade agreement between Mexico and the European Union (EU)—fake news even though they announced it together last week.

The public can be excused for not knowing the current status or prospects of the United States’ major international trade agreements—even the future of the World Trade Organization itself—because of the weekly flip-flops by the Trump Administration as it struggles to reconcile the competing claims of different segments of U.S. industry, agriculture, Congress, the White House and Trump’s own campaign promises. When the dust settles, however, I believe both economic and political logic, as well as geopolitical concerns, will lead the United States to agree to an updated NAFTA with Mexico and Canada, to try to rejoin and modify the TPP (which has now gone into effect, in simplified form, without the United States) and eventually to resume its negotiations for an expanded trade agreement with the EU. If that happens—and the NAFTA discussions are under way now—the question for environmentalists and environmental lawyers is whether the new agreements will provide an opportunity to improve and expand the kinds of environmental protection built into the new trade agreements.