Saskatoon StarPhoenix

FREE TRADE SURVIVES

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Trade agreements between nations — even nations run by thoughtful, experience­d leaders — are inevitably born of compromise­s between competing agendas. Just ask the Mulroney-era team that negotiated NAFTA with the U.S. and Mexico in 1992.

Now imagine how much more difficult it is to cut a deal when one of the national leaders involved is unpredicta­ble, temperamen­tal and often uninformed. Seen in that light, the trade pact Canada has reached with the United States (and Mexico) feels like something of a miracle.

The accord has its flaws, and as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cautioned on Monday, it also must still be ratified by all three countries. Still, after 19 months of brutal negotiatio­ns, an agreement in principle exists to keep supporting free exchange in a regional market worth $25 trillion and representi­ng 470 million people. Several good things can be said about what’s now called the USMCA (United States-Mexico-canada Agreement):

The deal appears to preserve the trade dispute settlement mechanism Canada has always insisted must be at the heart of a free-trade pact. When your major trading partner is 10 times larger than you, clear rules for settling disputes must exist.

The auto sector seems to have survived. The ceiling has been significan­tly raised on how many cars Canada can export to the U.S. before the Trump administra­tion can hypothetic­ally impose tariffs on those exports. In effect, say Canadian officials, it means we’re exempt.

Supply management in Canada’s dairy sector is likely in its end days. This will be hard on a sector that faces significan­t change, but we’re no fans of rules that impose artificial pricing, and we think Canada needed to open up the system — to the ultimate benefit of consumers.

Renegotiat­ing NAFTA sucked up much of the political oxygen in official Ottawa for almost two years, to the detriment of other priorities. With luck, the Liberals may soon be able to redirect some of their best brains to Canadians’ other interests.

Donald Trump is actually touting the deal (at least, he was on Monday). It’s crucial to future Canada-u.s. relations that the American president conclude he has a win. We share so many interests with the Americans, from defence to human rights, that renewing good relations is a must.

On Monday, free-trade veteran Brian Mulroney, noting that “the devil is in the details,” nonetheles­s called the new agreement “a highly significan­t achievemen­t” for Canada. It is. Bravo.

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