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U.S. and Mexico Reach Trade Agreement; NAFTA; Hurricane Lane Drops Record Rainfall on Hawaii; Naming of Hurricanes; Space Flights to be Back in Florida; Guinness World Record for College Lecture

Aired August 28, 2018 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: International trade is the first subject we`re explaining on CNN 10. I`m Carl Azuz. Thank you for watching the show. On

Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States and Mexico had reached a new agreement on trade. Since 1993, those two

countries plus Canada have all been part of a trade deal called NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was controversial when it was

ratified. It`s controversial today. NAFTA has impacted thousands of companies and millions of jobs. Analysts say American consumers have

benefited by paying lower prices on many of the goods they buy.

But American factory workers say they`ve gotten the short end of the deal with their jobs outsourced to Mexico. A U.S. trade representative has also

noted the pros and cons, saying NAFTA has helped American farmers and it`s helped the U.S., Canada and Mexico grow closer. But he adds that at least

700,000 U.S. jobs have been lost because of it. For years, including when he was on the campaign trail, President Trump has criticized NAFTA and

promised to either renegotiate it or get the U.S. out of it all together.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So just what is it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well let`s begin with the basics. First it includes Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. It was proposed in 1992 by these guys and it

was extremely controversial. Critics feared massive job losses with businesses packing up and moving production to Mexico. Supporters though,

they claim that it would lead to cheaper goods and that would lead to economic growth. But NAFTA won out in the end with Congress and then

President Clinton ratifying it in 1993.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: We are ready to compete and we can win.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: NAFTA is a large incredibly complicated document. But at it`s core, it`s pretty simple. Before NAFTA, when items were imported

they were taxed, after NAFTA they weren`t. This protects goods made domestically at the expense of consumers and the tax on foreign products is

passed down. Higher tariffs, more expensive goods, less trade. Free trade agreements like NAFTA remove those tariffs, incentivizing trade and

lowering costs for consumers. Tariffs were greatly reduced at the start of the agreement the 1994 and totally eliminated by 2008. So what did NAFTA

accomplish?

It`s not easy pinpointing the exact effects that NAFTA`s had because there are many factors on how economies function. Since the agreement, U.S.

trade amongst Mexico and Canada have tripled. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico has increased significantly. But according to this

Congressional report, NAFTA hasn`t had that large an effect on the U.S. economy. NAFTA only increased the U.S. GDP by a few hundredths of a

percent because relative to the size of the total economy, trade with Mexico and Canada isn`t that big. So the biggest question of all, how has

it effected American jobs?

Economists agree there`s no simple answer. It`s impossible to completely separate the effects NAFTA`s had on the economy from other external forces

like recessions, currency valuations, technological automation and overall increases in globalization. Many U.S. manufacturing jobs have moved

overseas to countries that America doesn`t even have free trade agreements with like China. Overall, domestic manufacturing has taken a spill. Trade

has increased and goods are cheaper.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARL AZUZ: So, mixed reactions and mixed results from NAFTA. President Trump says the name itself has a bad contenation. So the U.S. is going to

call the new deal the United States-Mexico Trade Agreement. Negotiations on this have been going on for about a year. During that time, the U.S.

has put tariffs or taxes on certain imported goods from Mexico and Canada and those countries have retaliated with tariffs of their own on American

made goods. And all this happened even though the NAFTA agreement said they wouldn`t do it. So the business world which includes the U.S. Stock

Market saw the new agreement discussed on Monday as good news.

But one question is still unanswered. What about Canada? Will it also agree to the terms shared by the U.S. and Mexico? President Trump has

indicated that he`d want individual deals with each of America`s neighbors. But Mexico and Canada have said they want all three countries to be tied

into the deal just like they were in NAFTA. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said he now wants Canada to be part of the new agreement. A Canadian

government spokesperson says his country is quote, "encouraged by the continued optimism" shown by the U.S. and Mexico. So while there`s hope

that Canada will join in, it`s not a done deal. There`s still some uncertainty about the future of a three country trade agreement involving

the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Last week we reported on Hurricane Lane`s approach to the U.S. state of Hawaii. When the resident of the Big Island was asked about it, he said

the wind wasn`t bad but the rain was bad. Between Wednesday afternoon and Sunday morning, more than 51 1/2 inches of rain fell on part of Hawaii.

That made Lane the third wettest tropical cyclone to hit the U.S. since 1950. And on the island of Maui, to the Northwest, state officials say

they responded to at least 10 incidents of landslides and fallen trees. There were also brush fires causing problems there. Still, Lane did not

make a direct hit and the Mayor of Honolulu said Hawaii dodged a bullet. At one point, the storm was a Category 5 cyclone. The most powerful in the

Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. But it had weakened as it approached the islands. Flooding was among Hurricane Lane`s worst effects.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you lived in Homestead, Florida in 1992, Andrew is a name you will never forget. Just like in 2005, if you lived in the New

Orleans area Katrina. The military started naming storms after their wives, their girlfriends but none of these names were made public. So in

1950, everything changed. Several storms formed out in the Atlantic about the same time. It created a lot of confusion so the U.S. Weather Bureau

said, OK. Let`s start naming storms and they actually started by using the World War II alphabet. Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, but this created

confusion as well because every year the storm names were the same.

It wasn`t until 1979 that we started alternating male and female names. We recycle that list every six years. In the Atlantic basin we use English,

Spanish and French names. No storms are named after a particular person. In fact, you can`t request a storm to be named after you. That entire

process is handled by the World Meteorological Organization. A storm name will be retired if it is too costly or deadly and it would be inappropriate

to use it in future years.

In fact since 1950, there have been nearly 80 storm names retired. And what happens if we go through all of the storm names? Well it happened in

2005, we ended up going to the Greek Alphabet. So that`s what`s in a name. Took a long time to get here but just like each individual name, each storm

tends to have it`s own personality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARL AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. What is the name of the first private spacecraft to reach the International Space Station? Falcon, Soyuz, Dragon

or Apollo. Dragon is considered to be the first private spacecraft to do this though Space X, the company that makes it has received funding from

NASA.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This truly is a test pilot`s dream and I`m excited about the whole thing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only thing I can add to that is the importance for me personally to, kind of, return human space flights to the Florida coast,

back to the United States. Being able to fly a first flight of a vehicle as a test pilot is - - is once in a generational type of opportunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARL AZUZ: It`s true that some college lectures feel like they last all day. This one took longer. It was a Guinness World Record attempt for the

longest, continuous college lecture. It started last Friday morning and went on for 30 hours. The associate professor went through Texas history

like all of it. Material that he`d usually cover in 14 weeks. At least 10 students had to be there the whole time. They had to stay awake and no

cell phones were allowed.

But hey, if you`re going to pull an all nighter, why not make history while you take history. Not sure if there`s any extra credit or if that counts

as 30 hours of course credit but of course you`ve got to credit the lecturer for talking up his course and his record. No one needed to be

lectured that they`d get something to talk about. I`m Carl Azuz with just 10 minutes of news and puns on CNN 10.

END