Trade negotiation looks more like surrender
At first glance, it is easy to chalk up the train wreck that is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) re-negotiations to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bad luck. But in politics, there’s an old saying that you make your own luck.
And there should be some tough questions asked and accountability demanded on how it all came to this: a last minute “take it or leave it” ultimatum for Canada to sign a trade deal seemingly reached between Mexico and the United States while Canada watched from the sidelines for five weeks.
Two years ago, when a populist presidential candidate tapped into NAFTA as the root of flagging American competitiveness and lost jobs and he promised to reform it, what did Canada do? Trudeau’s Liberal brain trust not only looked down their noses at the reality-tv buffoon Donald Trump but ignored even the possibility that he could be mining a vein of real American angst.
As the Trump presidency settled into the Oval Office, Canada whistled past the graveyard thinking it impossible that a president would actually do what he promised. And, despite a cordial first meeting with the president, Trudeau couldn’t resist identity politics and virtue signalling by declaring that any new Canadian trade agreements, like NAFTA, must include chapters on gender, climate change and Indigenous issues. This established that Canada was not going to be taken seriously by the Americans.
As the NAFTA talks began, Canada’s lead negotiator insulted the Trump administration with a backhanded comment during a Washington speech on trade. This would not have been done by the redoubtable international trade law experts who have led Canadian trade teams in the past.
But Chrystia Freeland is not an expert in trade. Nor is she a seasoned negotiator. She’s a politician. Though bright and well educated, Freeland’s life experience was as a journalist before becoming Trudeau’s minister of Foreign Affairs.
From the day he was elected, President Trump’s beef was not with Canada — it was with Mexico. Except for some minor objections, mainly over Canadian dairy policy, Trump spoke of “tweaking ” the Canadian relationship. And his team said it preferred bilateral, or two-way, deals with each of Canada and Mexico.
By the end of this summer’s G7 meeting, Trump had backed off his insistence on a sunset clause that would set a NAFTA expiry date and had apparently thought the way was being paved for a Canadian deal.
This explained the president going ballistic when Trudeau publicly repeated that Canada was insulted by American tariffs.
It should be clear by now for anyone decoding Trump that straight talk and a play to his huge and brittle ego are important.
Rather than doing that and sliding quietly into a two-way deal with America by giving them some increased access to our dairy market, Canada allowed its options to run out.
Then Mexico, which had talked a good game along with us on insisting there’d be no bilateral agreements, started having a detailed twoway negotiation, as our lead negotiator and her team sat on the sidelines.
As this week played out, Ms. Freeland and the prime minister have put on their best brave faces and optimistically talked of getting a deal. But they are looking down the barrel of a last-minute ultimatum to sign a deal already decided by Mexico and the U.S.
The reworked NAFTA reportedly removes the dispute-settlement mechanism so cherished and needed by Canada; it changes drug patent laws and redefines how many cars will be manufactured in the U.S. To top it off, Trump’s position is that Canada can only take the deal if we bend on dairy. And, if we don’t accept the agreement, Trump will decimate our automotive industry with tariffs as early as next week.
This doesn’t seem much like a negotiated deal. It looks more like the Trudeau trade team signing terms of surrender.
Gormley is a broadcaster, lawyer, author and former Progressive Conservative MP whose radio talk show is heard weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on 650 CKOM Saskatoon & 980 CJME Regina.