U.S. needs to do some homework

For all its supposed eagerness to rewrite the trade rules, the Trump administration is taking a long time to produce detailed proposals in trade treaty negotiations with Mexico and Canada.

U.S. President Donald Trump himself used to say he wanted to conclude an agreement before the end of this year on changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but the members of his negotiating team are acting as if they have all the time in the world.

Steve Verheul, chief negotiator for Canada in the three-way NAFTA talks, told journalists last weekend that solid progress had been made and the pace of the talks has been very fast, which is no doubt the way it feels at the bargaining table.

But in fact, the U.S. has yet to say how much U.S. content it wants to see in automobiles and parts moving across borders within the freetrade zone. The administration says it cares deeply about this issue, but you wouldn’t know that from its reticence in offering a specific plan.

Ending Canada’s supply-management system for dairy products is supposedly another top U.S. priority. That should be a pretty easy topic, since Canada has already conceded, in its new trade treaty with the European Union, that the current tight dairy-production controls and import barriers are negotiable. Yet there is no sign of a specific proposal on the subject from the U.S.

It seems more and more as though the Trump administration launched into this trade-treaty renegotiation without thinking carefully about what it was getting into. It is now nearly inconceivable that an agreement can be reached within the next three months.

Concluding an agreement this year used to seem important because once the U.S. political parties start campaigning for next year’s congressional mid-term elections, rational discourse in the U.S. about trade issues will have to be suspended.

The July 2018 presidential election in Mexico will have a similar effect in that country. As a practical matter, therefore, this negotiation will have to stretch out over a couple of years at least before an agreement can be reached.

It is possible, of course, that the U.S. side has no intention of reaching an agreement. That would explain the lackadaisical approach of the U.S. bargaining team. Trump repeatedly has said he does not think an agreement can be reached. As one party to the agreement, he is in a position to make his own prophecy come true simply by refusing to agree with the other parties.

As long as there is no agreement on changes to NAFTA, the present treaty will continue to apply ¬ unless, of course, Trump finds a way to tear it up, at the expense of the many companies, workers and consumers who currently benefit from free trade with Canada and Mexico.

Canada should not be hoodwinked into conceding anything to a negotiating partner who appears to take neither the negotiation nor the subject matter seriously. Verheul or his boss, Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, should urge the U.S. side to go home, do their homework, decide what they want and give Canada a call when they are ready to start talking.

In the meantime, Trump can attend to the urgent questions that confront him, such as football players who kneel when the U.S. national anthem is played.