President’s empty words

U.S. President Donald Trump has been using the powers of his office to make grand gestures that reflect his election campaign promises of last year. Under close scrutiny, however, his grandest gestures have no effect beyond their publicity value. Canada should pursue its trade negotiations with the United States on the assumption that Mr. Trump is aiming for another grand, empty gesture.

The gesture he probably has in mind is a notice that the U.S. is withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has often denounced as a terrible deal for his country. Such a notice would free Canada and Mexico to make new rules, within international law, for their domestic treatment of goods and services imported from the U.S. The president's notice would not by itself alter the implementing legislation by which the U.S. Congress put NAFTA into effect.

A great many employers in a great many U.S. states have shaped their businesses around NAFTA rules and they don't want the system terminated. Republicans in Congress hold a variety of views, but many support free trade in principle and celebrate the trade deals with Canada concluded under former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. President Trump would need congressional support to reerect trade barriers that were struck down by the NAFTA implementation law, and he probably won’t get it. The president's termination notice therefore would be an empty gesture.

Empty gestures are Trump’s stock in trade. His executive order banning Muslim immigration did not survive its first court challenge. His attempt to repeal former president Obama’s Affordable Care Act failed in Congress. He announced cancellation of the program to keep illegal immigrant children in the U.S. and then delayed the cancellation for six months for Congress to find a solution. His intention to cancel the nuclear weapons treaty with Iran was watered down into an angry refusal to certify Iranian compliance with the treaty. The treaty remains in force.

This, then, is the Trump style. Canada should expect the Trump administration to handle the NAFTA renegotiation in a similar way. Let the president have his grand, empty gesture: that’s what is important to him.

What’s important to us is continued free trade — between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico — which is regulated, among others, by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Canada should not agree to any unwelcome U.S. proposals in the hope that the U.S. will then agree to something we want: the Trump administration doesn't intend to make an agreement. U.S. business, as represented by the U.S. chambers of commerce, wants to preserve and expand the advantages of North American free trade. The U.S. national interest is best served by preserving the advantages achieved under NAFTA. U.S. industry and the House of Representatives probably will defend that interest, even if the Trump administration has other priorities.

The Trudeau government’s fine ideas about labour rights, women’s rights and environmental protection have aroused little interest from our Mexican and American partners. We can bring those ideas forward again to the next U.S. administration.

Meanwhile, we should go through the motions of negotiating, keep the game going, surrender nothing, let Trump have his grand, empty gesture, and prepare to have the real negotiation four years from now, with the next tenant of the White House.

—Winnipeg Free Press