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President Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a welcoming ceremony at the G-7 summit in Charlevoix, Canada. Canadians are stunned by the repeated echoes of what has long been their closest ally. (Evan Vucci / AP)
Negotiations on a new North American trade deal are expected to resume Wednesday morning in Washington, clouded by uncertainty over Canada's reaction to President Trump's uncompromising negotiating style.
Few analysts expect a swift resolution of the negotiations, which have blown up a series of deadlines imposed by themselves over the past year. The Trump administration on On Friday, Congress announced its intention to sign a new trade agreement with Mexico at the end of November – and with Canada if it so wishes. "
American and Canadian diplomats will now see if they can solve a host of problems that have hindered their efforts to revise the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement for more than a year. The talks are apparently over by the end of the month, when the administration has to send the official text of any proposed trade agreement to Capitol Hill.
Speaking Tuesday in Vancouver, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his officials would resume bargaining in the hope of reaching an agreement that would benefit the three countries.
"Now, our negotiators are returning to Washington tomorrow to engage constructively and collaboratively to see if there is an agreement for all of us there," Trudeau said. "Canada will not sign an agreement unless it is in the interest of Canadian workers, the Canadian middle class and Canadians in general. "
In the past week, Canada has been a punching bag for Trump. In unofficial comments in a Bloomberg interview last week, which later became public, the president has boasted that any new deal would "fully comply with our conditions." "
The president then threatened to put an agreement in place only for Mexico if Canada did not comply with US requirements.
"There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA agreement. If we do not reach a fair deal with the United States after decades of abuse, Canada will be eliminated. Congress must not interfere with these negotiations or I will simply end NAFTA and we will have much better things to do, "he tweeted Saturday.
That Trump can fix this threat remains an open question. High-ranking Republicans in Congress, the business community and labor organizations insist that Canada be included in any new deal. "It's hard to see how it would work without Canada's approval," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Sunday.
William Reinsch, a former Trade Department Trade Officer, said Canadians endure Trump's abuses to secure an agreement that preserves a lucrative continental trading bloc. "They thought about getting out of Trump," he said. "He's just climbing. He only raises that ante. You realize it and you get used to it.
Mexico, likewise, has endured Trump's repeated taunts about paying a wall along the US border while managing to secure significant concessions in direct negotiations with the Americans, he added.
Canadian and US officials are also facing difficult negotiations in any final part of NAFTA. "There are a number of things that we absolutely must see in a renegotiated NAFTA," Trudeau said.
As has been the case for a long time, Canada is concerned about at least three elements of the agreement between the United States and Mexico.
According to analysts, Canada's right to limit imports of dairy products, US trade barrier arbitration procedures and the life of any new North American trade agreement should dominate the deliberations.
But Canada will also raise concerns about intellectual property rights, the language that governs financial services, and the value of goods shipped through e-commerce vendors that can cross the border duty-free, they said. .
Canada insists on preserving a dispute-resolution process that the United States and Mexico have agreed to eliminate. Under Chapter 19 of NAFTA, one of the three trading partners can complain to an independent panel of anti-dumping or anti-subsidy experts from another country.
The system "has worked reasonably well," Trudeau said, adding, "We need a dispute resolution mechanism like Chapter 19, and we will stick steadily. "
The process, which deals with the question of whether the applicable duties were imposed in accordance with the law, was used, for example, to adjudicate Canadian complaints about US duties imposed on Canadian lumber imports. softwood.
Trump has also repeatedly complained about Canada's dairy management program, which uses 270% tariffs to hinder imports, threatening to impose tariffs on Canadian auto exports.
Canada had agreed to give US and foreign milk producers better access to its market during the unfortunate trans-Pacific partnership negotiations that Trump had withdrawn from the United States during his first few days in office. So there is a precedent for the kind of concessions that could grease an agreement.
But if Trump seeks to dismantle the entire Canadian dairy management program, there is little chance of reaching a quick agreement, according to Eric Miller, chairman of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group.
In addition to complicating matters, the negotiation will take place in the context of a campaign for legislative elections in Quebec, the province responsible for 42% of Canadian dairy production.
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