Can TPP offer a quick fix for NAFTA?

Donald Trump may have killed the 12country Trans-Pacific Partnership, but experts say parts of the moribund Pacific Rim trade pact could well be resurrected in an upgraded North American Free Trade Agreement.

That’s one way, they say, to help bring the outdated 23year-old NAFTA up to the standards of modern era trade agreements — and to do so before talks become complicated by a presidential election in Mexico and U.S. congressional midterms.

Canada, Mexico and the U.S. were all originally TPP countries that viewed the new agreement as the primary means to upgrade a longstanding trade deal that was showing its age.

NAFTA was negotiated before the onset of the digital age and e-commerce, and before labour and the environmental protection provisions became regular features of trade deals.

The already completed TPP chapters on those issues could be modified or repurposed in a new NAFTA upgrade, said Andrea van Vugt, the vice president for North American affairs with the Business Council of Canada.

“You can use the template, make some adjustments and call it your own, and you’ve just accelerated the process,” said van Vugt, who served as a chief of staff in the trade department during the Stephen Harper-era of Conservative rule.

“You can easily get this done within the time frame that they’re working with, which is the Mexican election and the U.S. midterms.”

Trump has pledged to scrap NAFTA if it can’t be renegotiated to his satisfaction. But the political clock is ticking against a comprehensive retooling of NAFTA because Mexican elections are taking place next year, and U.S. midterms will soon follow.

That has the U.S. and Mexico and hoping for a deal by early 2018, but many other experts say that won’t be possible because of the inherent complexities of trade negotiations. Canada, meanwhile, says it is ready to come to the negotiating table when called, but is showing no signs of being in any particular hurry.

Some experts argue that parts of the TPP can be incorporated in a way that could be palatable and facesaving for Trump. He has called the TPP a “disaster,” and pulled the U.S. out of the deal on his first day in office, saying it was bad for American workers.

“It’s politically risky for Trump to say that he’s going to use the TPP as a model. I don’t think he could do that explicitly,” said Laura Macdonald, a Carleton University expert on Canada-Mexico relations.

“But I think behind the scenes they’ll be looking at what all three countries had agreed to under the TPP. In some areas, that’s going to work better than others.”