Trans-Pacific Partnership

They've just, uh, updated their comprehensive trade agreement, uh, as is Canada.

Mexico is part of the, uh, what used to be called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, uh, s- this sort of broad Pacific, uh, trade agreement, in which, for some reason, the United Kingdom has just joined.

And, uh, and of course, then there's other relationships with like-minded countries, sort of pr- the progressive government of, uh, Lula in Brazil, where it's less of a trade relationship and more of a sort of strategic relationship when it comes to oil, when it comes to different sorts of, uh, diplomatic issues, and I think that's been really interesting.

I wanna end this conversation by coming back to CUSMA.

You know, we've had both the liberals and conservatives of the last 10 or 20 years.

get us to the free trade agreement with the EU, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

So I think putting aside what's going on right now with the U.S., there definitely has been a shift and more of an embrace in Canada of free trade, would you say?

Yes, I would tend to think that the opinion has shifted and it's important not to give in now.

That has been the strategy for most of our lives.

Hence, you have the North America Free Trade Agreement, the attempts at the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Of course, this all crumbled once Donald Trump got elected.

This is principally the reason why the machine state, as it were, that is, the Uniparty, fought so hard to stop Donald Trump.

And thus we saw the seizure of U.S. oil assets in Venezuela, as well as Iran, basically saying we're not playing ball and controlling the Persian Gulf.

Now, the interesting question is, as many former MAGA Trump supporters have broken from Donald Trump, accused him of working at the behest of Israel.

The question is, is Trump now inverting where he before shuttered the Trans-Pacific Partnership and changed the North America Free Trade Agreement? Is Donald Trump back on track with the liberal economic order, or is this Trump's attempt at realigning it into his vision? Either way, we are seeing a protracted war with Iran that seems to be going badly by almost every metric, for whatever reason you think it is.

We see the Ukrainians striking Iranian shipments to Russia, and it looks like we are barreling towards, dare I say, World War III.

It's Europe stepping in.

On the trade side, one of the interesting conversations, and Colin will know more about it, he's more the trade specialist than I am, but the Trans-Pacific Partnership, on trade uh which the united states in the end was not part of we're now looking at possibilities to link this to the european union how do we create a different kind of trading arrangement uh globally that's very interesting um as an alternative And it's outside, you know, it's an alternative to if we can't fix the WTO and the global system that we have, how do we begin to adapt trading relationships to take account of the fact that whether Trump is there or not, we are going to have a degree of protectionism in the United States.

I think that ship has sailed.

It might not be...

Number one.

And what about the Trans-Pacific Partnership? This is a trade deal involving the most advanced economies in the Pacific, obviously, including Canada, Japan and South Korea.

Is that going to become more important for Canadians?

I imagine it will.

We have free trade, many free trade agreements.

I mean, we kept, well, we kept, I mean, my government kept the Trans-Pacific partnership alive after Trump pulled out, for example, and, uh, working with Shinzo Abe in particular, uh, to do that.

So, you know, we're fr- free trade is good for us, but I can understand the case they make in the US.

Now, you made a very good point, if I could just pick up on this because I think it's a really important one, particularly for an American audience and Canadian audience.

In between was Biden, who was more globally minded, but who is the, uh... who also was almost as protectionist as Donald Trump, uh, and, and failed the test of leadership on issues like, like Ukraine." I mean, Biden always seemed-- his approach seemed to be find out what the Ukrainians need, send them half, um, and hope that, uh, and hope that that placates the friends of Ukraine without irritating the Russians too much.

Um, under Biden, the United States strategic position vis-à-vis China also deteriorated.

Biden did not revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is a signal not just to Australia but-- and not just to Japan, but again, to those more transactional partners like Vi- Vietnam and Indonesia.

So it's been 10 years.