Scheer’s trade critique off mark
Who would really want to reopen NAFTA?
Is there a body of voters in this country who were left in foam-flecked apoplexy by the new NAFTA deal signed by Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump last year — besides, perhaps, 13,000 dairy farmers?
Andrew Scheer seems to think so. He held an impromptu press conference on his campaign plane at 35,000 feet above the Prairies (and most of the real issues) early Sunday morning.
Scheer said Trump had “run the table” on Trudeau,
who capitulated while the American president “took it all.”
“What did we get in return? Where are the wins?” he asked. “I would challenge anyone to tell me where we are better off.”
Granted, it may have been a tactic aimed at diverting the travelling media from asking about what appears to be the rather careless vetting of Conservative candidates. At least four have been in the news for leaving digital fingerprints of opinions judged to be unacceptable in these days of hypersensitivity to insensitivity.
But this is not the first time Scheer has taken aim at the new NAFTA. I don’t get it.
There are many things for which Trudeau can justifiably be taken to task. But managing to strike a deal with an ardent protectionist, who coined the phrase “it’s give and take — but mostly it’s gotta be take,” is not high on the list.
Scheer criticized the Liberals for volunteering to reopen NAFTA in the first place.
In that, he has a point. Politicians, like gamblers, need to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. Trudeau’s pre-emptive decision to tell one of the planet’s most voracious deal-makers that Canada was willing to renegotiate NAFTA, without even being asked, was naive.
Other mistakes were made. Trying to insert the Liberals’ progressive agenda was needlessly provocative.
But Trudeau deserves credit for taking one for the team and suffering some personal embarrassment in pursuit of continued preferential access to the $752 billion-a-year trading relationship with the United States.
Concessions were made, including one that Scheer noted specifically — the limitations on dairy exports. (The irony, of course, is that under the protected supply managed system exports are negligible.)
According to Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s former principal secretary, the Americans were never really serious about dismantling the domestic supply management system for dairy, eggs, and poultry, but were more focused on ensuring Canadian producers did not expand into the skim milk and baby formula market in Asia.
Trudeau overplayed his hand by claiming victory when the deal with Trump was signed, saying it was “a great day for Canada.”
The claim was short on facts to support it. It was true that Canada had negotiated away some of Trump’s more draconian demands — a Buy American provision that would have capped Canadian companies bidding for U.S. government contracts; a requirement that 50 per cent of the components in cars made in Canada be American made; the abolition of supply management; and a sunset clause that would have automatically ended the deal after five years.
But it was clear Trump had used what he called “the power of tariffs” to bully his trading partners into making concessions, such as the provision in the agreement that allowed the U.S. to vet any prospective deal between Canada and a “non-market player” — China. Another clause instituted quotas on how many cars could be built in Canada (although the limit was much higher than current production). Both provisions were constraints on Canadian sovereignty.
But as Butts noted, “every trade agreement is an abrogation of sovereignty.”
The response of Canadians to the deal makes it curious why Scheer now thinks that proposing to reopen it is a good idea. One public opinion poll by Pollara late last year suggested a clear majority of Canadians endorsed the Liberal government’s handling of the file. Even those who claimed they were disappointed were not strongly negative.
Stephen Harper, in his critical Napping on NAFTA memo to clients of his firm Harper and Associates, said mid-negotiation that he did not consider Trump’s threat to terminate the agreement to be a bluff. He said it did not matter whether the American proposals were better than the existing terms. Rather, what mattered was determining whether it was worth having a trade agreement with the Americans at all. Scheer’s criticism suggests he thinks Trudeau should have walked away.
Another former Conservative leader, Rona Ambrose, has acknowledged Canada made some concessions but also scored some wins — particularly on the Chapter 19 dispute resolution framework, designed to ensure the agreement is not run according to the whims of a capricious U.S. president.
Scheer admits his party supported ratification of the current agreement in Parliament but that, after the election, he will seek to “get a better deal on some of the failures Justin Trudeau has left us with.” “It coulda been better,” said one of his advisers. True, but it coulda been a lot worse, too.
Again, is there really an appetite in the country to go to Washington and tell Donald Trump where to stick his agreement?
I may be missing something, but I suspect most Canadians are just glad they’re not forced by economic circumstance to eat their own wallpaper.