WASHINGTON President Donald Trump took another victory lap Wednesday on what he calls a tremendous trade deal but that is mainly, according to economists and trade experts, a rebranded NAFTA, the 26-year-old agreement that Trump has called a disaster and a catastrophe.

Today, were finally ending the NAFTA nightmare and signing into law the brand-new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Trump said on the White House South Lawn to a cheering crowd of invited guests and Republican lawmakers. This is a colossal victory for our farmers, ranchers, energy workers, factory workers and American workers in all 50 states.

Experts on trade from both liberal and conservative perspectives disagreed.

Its an improvement at the margins but far from perfect and not nearly as different as Trump claims, said Jared Bernstein, who served as then-Vice President Joe Biden s chief economic adviser. In fact, there will almost surely be no notable differences in trade flows or balances.

While many business and farm groups, as well as the governments of Canada and Mexico, strongly backed adoption of the USMCA, much of that was out of fear that Trump would try to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement if the update were not approved. Trade experts in all three countries doubted he had the legal ability to do that unilaterally, but said the chaos even an attempt would create would be damaging to the economies of all three countries.