Canada and Mexico are right to stick together on NAFTA

Donald Trump’s negotiating strategy is straight out of the Chinese military treatise “The Art of War.” It’s hardly appropriate for the leader of the world’s most powerful democracy, but it certainly has a track record. Similarly, Trump is quick to employ another strategy that has deep historical roots: divide and conquer (also referred to as divide and rule).

Julius Caesar applied it when he divided Rome and “all Gaul.” But the strategy goes further back than that, to Macedonia 70 years earlier and to Babylon 1,200 years before Caesar borrowed it. So clearly, history tells us, divide and conquer can work.

Trump is employing it, infamously, with his allies, like the European Union and NATO. And he’s tapping it again with Canada, Mexico and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He’s not being secretive. He has openly said repeatedly he would rather have separate trade agreements with his continental partners rather than a three-way deal. But his rationale is that Canada and Mexico are so different it makes no sense to have one agreement that works for and on both of them while still delivering optimal benefit to the U.S.

He’s not wrong about some of this. Canada and Mexico probably have as many differences as they have commonalities. In particular, Mexico’s stubbornly low standard of living for workers and low wages are what makes so many businesses eager to operate there, compared to more expensive jurisdictions.

What Trump and his trade team aren’t saying is that separating Canada and Mexico makes each weaker in terms of negotiating power with the economic and political elephant that is the U.S. That is certainly in Trump’s competitive interest.

But it’s not in the interest of the other two parties. So it makes perfect sense for Canada and Mexico to do what they did this week and declare unity on the trade front.

Mexico’s new president-elect, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has said he wants to see NAFTA modernized but not changed structurally and that he wants to see negotiations accelerated.

The Americans, not so much. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue again this week said a new deal could be completed separately, with the Mexican chapter done by September.

The collective unity of Canada and Mexico won’t please Trump. Watch Twitter for the requisite temper tantrum. It could cause him to retaliate, and it certainly reduces the chances of him backing off on tariff punishment as he did this week with the European Union, notably excluding Canada and Mexico from his new, less combative, rhetoric.

Still, our two countries are stronger together than apart. Together, we might get the U.S. to budge on its most destructive demand for a revised treaty — that a Sunset Clause require the pact to be reviewed and renewed every five years.

Can you picture major corporations — in the auto sector, for example — making investment decisions without knowing about trade security beyond five years out?

It makes no sense, and Canada and Mexico should continue to stand together against it.

What Trump and his trade team aren’t saying is that separating Canada and Mexico makes each weaker in terms of negotiating power with the economic and political elephant that is the U.S.