National Post (National Edition)
NAFTA TALKS IN CRISIS
Need to be ‘ready for anything,’ says Trudeau
WASHINGTON • For the first time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is acknowledging that the North American Free Trade Agreement could be in trouble.
Trudeau wrapped up his visit to Washington on Wednesday by saying that he continues to believe that renegotiating and renewing NAFTA is the best option for all three countries. However, he suggested — repeatedly — that the federal Liberal government is bracing for the worst.
“It is very important and very possible to get a winwin-win ... out of these negotiations,” Trudeau told a news conference on the roof of the Canadian Embassy. “So saying, I think it’s been clear that circumstances are often challenging, and we have to be ready for anything — and we are.
“We’re taking this very seriously and we’re taking the importance of standing up for Canadian jobs and Canadian economic growth very seriously, and that goes (for) every economic engagement we have with the Americans.”
Trudeau wasn’t the only one sounding gloomy on the outcome.
Donald Trump could well decide to cancel NAFTA, Stephen Harper warned Wednesday as the former prime minister ended his public silence on current events by describing anti-trade sentiment in the U.S. as an intractable, long-term problem with no easy fix.
Harper stepped into the role of political analyst during a panel discussion in Washington. Powerful antitrade forces that predate Trump’s presidency are at play in American society and aren’t going away anytime soon, said the former Conservative leader, who’s known as an ardent free trader.
He recalled being told by the Bush administration when he took office in 2006 that NAFTA would never have won a vote in the U.S. Congress at the time. He described how Barack Obama campaigned against the deal. He believes trade will remain controversial, whether or not Trump cancels NAFTA, which he thinks could happen. He said he is advising companies to start planning for the possibility of a world without NAFTA.
“I believe that it is conceivable. I believe Donald Trump would be willing to take the economic and political risk of that under certain circumstances,” Harper said.
“What’s driving this are some very powerful political currents that, frankly, nobody — including Mr. Trump — has really figured out how to address, and they’re going to keep coming at us.”
BRUSSELS • A British politician who pushed for Brexit says he believes the U.K. government is interested in joining NAFTA, or whatever becomes of it.
Daniel Hannan spoke to the National Post in Brussels about the prospect of a crossAtlantic free-trade zone even as a fourth round of North American Free Trade Agreement talks ramps up in the United States.
The member of European Parliament and British Conservative said he senses openness to trade deals from both the American and Canadian administrations. Despite growing protectionism south of the border, which Hannan says “needs to be rebutted,” U.S. President Donald Trump seems keenly interested in working with Britain.
“(The administration is) hesitant on trade but weirdly enthusiastic about trade with the U.K. It’s the one positive in this administration,” he said.
“Donald Trump misses no opportunity to say, you know, he puts it always in his language, ‘it’s going to be a great, beautiful, fantastic, amazing trade deal with the U.K.’ ”
Meanwhile, Canada seems positive toward a free trade deal with Britain. Following a recent meeting between Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau and Theresa May in Ottawa, the leaders shared optimism the Canada-EU free trade deal, CETA, could morph into a bilateral agreement postBrexit.
But Hannan, who sat on the Vote Leave campaign committee and appointed its chief executive — “so, in that sense, I started it” — has more in mind.
He and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson launched two weeks ago an Institute for Free Trade. The pro-Brexit think tank tries to make an “ethical” case for free trade, saying free trade zones do much to alleviate poverty and further social justice.
The U.K. could join NAFTA or form a trilateral agreement with Canada and the U.S., Hannan said. His preference is to join NAFTA and combine this with EFTA — the European Free Trade Association made up of nonEU European states Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Ultimately the deal could bring in the EU, as Hannan sees it.
“We’d be bringing something new to the table,” he said, noting a Canada-U.K.Australia-New Zealand deal such as that advocated by former Conservative leadership contestant and current foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole has now “in an astonishingly short time” gone from being a new idea to being “quite a mainstream idea.”
Hannan is a longtime Tory with deep ties to Canada’s Conservative party. At the beginning of September, he spoke at the party’s caucus retreat in Winnipeg.
Hannan remains “cheerful” about Brexit, with a formal withdrawal scheduled for the end of March, 2019. He said he expects a CETAstyle trade deal with the EU should talks falter before the sever.
Any decisions on a U.K. attempt to join NAFTA will inevitably have to wait until the result of trilateral negotiations between Canada, U.S. and Mexico.