Trump bears trade gifts

In renegotiating NAFTA for the benefit of Americans, Trump will be turning the screws on our government to convince us to accede to his demands. Let’s hope he succeeds. Trump’s demands would simultaneously make winners of Canadian consumers, Canadian taxpayers, the Canadian environment and the Canadian economy.

Trump’s Canada-related goals, as formally stated in his administration’s Summary of Objectives for the NAFTA Renegotiation, are designed to pry open the Canadian market to U.S. exports. His crowbar in doing this — a takedown of much of Canada’s regulatory state — would be all to the good for the great majority of Canadians (special interests excepted).

If Trump gets his way, Canada’s supply-management system in agriculture — one of his most-publicized targets — would vanish. Gone would be one of the greatest impediments to Canada’s ability to strike successful free-trade agreements worldwide. Ridding ourselves of the supplymanagement albatross would be as important domestically as internationally, including for poorer Canadians who struggle paying a big premium for milk and cheese, products that should be staples. In Trump’s trade scenario, the U.S. agricultural market would also be opened up, aiding Canadian companies such as Montreal-based Saputo, which relishes the opportunity to sell into the giant U.S. market as well as in the new markets that would open up internationally.

The softwood lumber dispute — caused because Canada sells subsidized lumber into the U.S. — would also vanish through Trump’s targeting of state-owned enterprises, which own more than 90 per cent of Canada’s forests. (Americans don’t object to free-market forest exports, such as those from Nova Scotia’s privately owned forests.) By preventing subsidies and cross-subsidies in forest operations, the environment would be spared as well as taxpayers, since the harvesting of uneconomical trees would end.