United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement

And although I know I, I find myself in the minority here, I think that we may rue the day that we didn't sign the deal that was negotiated because, as I say, those terms may not have been the first best choice, of course, but given the situation we're living in, actually represents, um, a, a pretty positive, in my view, outcome, uh, out of the, the whole, uh, maelstrom that, that really started when President Trump, uh, started talking about, uh, ripping up NAFTA and renegotiating the, the underlying assumptions of the Canada-US free trade ar- ar- arrangement.

So and that's-- So there's a lot to unpack there, and I think these are important points, is that CUSMA, USMCA, um, did replace NAFTA.

It was, you know, under Donald Trump that this deal was struck.

Yes.

And although I know I, I find myself in the minority here, I think that we may rue the day that we didn't sign the deal that was negotiated because, as I say, those terms may not have been the first best choice, of course, but given the situation we're living in, actually represents, um, a, a pretty positive, in my view, outcome, uh, out of the, the whole, uh, maelstrom that, that really started when President Trump, uh, started talking about, uh, ripping up NAFTA and renegotiating the, the underlying assumptions of the Canada-US free trade ar- ar- arrangement.

So and that's-- So there's a lot to unpack there, and I think these are important points, is that CUSMA, USMCA, um, did replace NAFTA.

It was, you know, under Donald Trump that this deal was struck.

Yes.

The anger that so many Canadians feel toward the United States is understandable.

Ever since the signing of the nineteen eighty-eight US-Canada Free Trade Agreement, which morphed into NAFTA and later the USMCA, Canada has bet its future on deepening its economic integration with the United States.

As of last year, seventy percent of Canadian exports went to the United States.

Trump, however, has weaponized that integration.

For decades, Washington and Ottawa bickered over fishing rights in the Atlantic Ocean.

The United States long resisted construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, one of the great engineering accomplishments of the twentieth century, because it threatened the livelihood of US railroads in eastern ports.

Tensions continued even with NAFTA and the USMCA.

Just ask anyone in the office of the US trade representative about Canadian softwood lumber or Canada's supply management system for dairy, poultry, and egg production.

And so maybe I'll stop there, but I do think it's important to separate out the various incentives that both sides have to come together.

There was an agreement, the USMCA, from the first Trump administration, as I recall.

You participated in that administration.

The USMCA returning with amendations built into the treaty.

You can suggest that you want this change and that change over many years.

Is that going to serve as a bridge or is this right now joining the EU? Is that the end of the USMCA?

Well, reportedly a deal was on the table and Prime Minister Carney walked away from it.

It is interesting that we haven't seen the details of that, which suggests to me it probably was a palatable deal.

In his first term, Trump negotiated the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement that replaced the widely criticized North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, in January 2020.

Although at the time Trump called his USMCA deal the greatest trade deal ever, not long after returning to the presidency, he condemned his own trade deal and launched a trade war against Canada, America's second-biggest trading partner, in February last year.

Trump justified his imposition of a general 25% tariff and a 10% energy tariff on Canadian imports by stating that new trade sanctions were imposed to stop illegal migration and fentanyl from entering the US, where neither charge was true.

The confrontation escalated sharply in July when Trump imposed a 50% tariff on nearly $28 billion worth of Canadian goods.

I haven't been a fan of them.

You know, the USMCA, for example, I, I was not a fan of.

Um, but, uh, it did go through.

Yeah.

So just on the trade level, there are opportunities.

We have a free trade agreement with Europe, though it's not as extensive as the USMCA, as CUSMA.

And it's not fully implemented because there are a number of European states that haven't ratified it.

So there are a lot of wrinkles.

So just on the trade level, there are opportunities.

We have a free trade agreement with Europe, though it's not as extensive as the USMCA, as CUSMA.

And it's not fully implemented because there are a number of European states that haven't ratified it.

So there are a lot of wrinkles.

There's always challenges.

Getting through that kind of uncertainty, the CUSMA, the Canadian-U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, allowed many, many goods to still go under that agreement.

Tariffs didn't impact things so much.

But I think that one of the things that we have to recognize is that certainly with the forest industry and things like that, we've had to deal with a lot of uncertainty with some of the commodity-based products.