Do you trust U.S. president Donald Trump? Why would you when his actions are erratic, his decisions changeable, his sources of information questionable and his attention span so limited? In approving the revised North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), did the parliamentarians consider this man’s weaknesses and frequent whims? They might have, if they understood the executive power he wields over American foreign trade.
The reason the first version of NAFTA worked so well for Canada is that the Americans wanted guaranteed access to Canada’s resources such as the tar sands and grandfathered the Auto Pact in exchange.
It was a few years until the fracking for oil in the U.S. proved that the U.S. was actually self-sufficient in oil resources. At the same time, Eastern Canada had rebuilt its manufacturing to supply auto parts and was attracting auto assembly operations from Asia. The Americans felt the rules of origin in NAFTA were under threat. What started as ruffled feathers over soft-wood lumber on the west coast became steel and aluminum barriers in the east. Donald Trump saw the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico as an easy target in stirring dissent with the status quo in political America.
When Trump found recently that he was in the cross-hairs for not managing the panic in the U.S., he saw a chance to lay blame on 3M for selling critical N95 surgical masks to Canada and Latin American countries. Despite the new NAFTA agreement, that he had congress approve, Trump used his executive power to stop shipments to Canada and others outside the U.S. This was also despite the fact that the major material for these masks comes from Canada. Trump was very lucky that the Canadian government did not choose to retaliate.
But that is the trust that countries place in trade agreements. The agreements are not just for sunny days. Situations change, needs change but the countries that make these deals have to be able to trust their trading partners. You do not make unilateral changes. A dire need on one side of a border can be just as dire as the need on the other side. And it is in times such as this that the unilateral actions of one country can be long remembered by the population of the other.
Trust cannot be written. It can only be earned.
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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry
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