Making a Silk Purse Out of a Sow's Ear - On Trudeau's Watch

"There has never been a better time to diversify."
"In a world where preferential access is the critical ingredient for success, particularly for an economy the size of ours, Canada is poised to become literally the most connected to global consumers."
"This is potentially one of the most exciting pivotal moments in Canadian trading history."
Joseph Pickerill, spokesman, Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne

"Suddenly you've got agreements that matter. Weve got more than enough friggin' work on our hands just trying to get business up to speed on the EU and to get business up to speed on the (CPTPP). These are huge markets, huge potential and it's going to take an inordinate amount of work."
Carlo Dade, Canada West Foundation

"People often overstate the actions they will personally take in response to an issue of concern, so care should be taken in forecasting a northern customer backlash."
"But that having been said, the potential for customers to look for simple ways to tell Americans how upset they are is there [in boycotting American-sourced goods] -- and for some segments of the U.S. economy, the impacts could easily be meaningful, depending on how things unfold."
Bruce Anderson, chair, Abacus Polling

"How the hell can you have an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent if your trade arrangements are so bad? The answer is they're not."
"I told [U.S. Commerce Secretary] Wilbur Ross that if I had a 3.8 percent unemployment rate, I'd still be prime minister of Canada."
Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney

The Canada-US trade relationship has soured   Reuters

Actually, he wouldn't still be prime minister of the country. Brian Mulroney was an exceedingly unpopular prime minister. He did, however, have excellent country-to-country, diplomatic and personal relations with Ronald Reagan, and as such could be assured to have a sympathetic ear in the American president. It was, of course, Brian Mulroney as Canada's then-prime minister whose trade team successfully negotiated first the bilateral Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and its follow-up to trilaterally include Mexico, in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

An agreement that served all three countries well. And which ended up integrating their economies and their industrial production to make it an overall success for all three of the trade partners. Until, that is, Donald Trump showed up on the presidential campaign trail and stated up front his rejection of the NAFTA agreement, claiming it took advantage of American generosity at the expense of American workers and he would reject it; either renegotiating to U.S. advantage to address trade imbalances or cancel it outright.

And this, it appears, is precisely what he is aiming for, leaving Canada and Mexico in a trade quandary. What this obnoxious personality that is the American President who enjoys making news by throwing his considerable weight around has done in the process of reasserting American power politics is not only to have violated the trust held by its political and economic partners, but alienated them to the point where the structure of the G7 advanced economies is now in complete disarray. While Trump has abandoned America's friendly relations with its allies, he has embraced its challengers.

The bravado being expressed over Canada's intention to 'diversify' its trade and no longer be so wholly dependent on the U.S. market is just that; bravado. As it happens, Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre E. Trudeau as prime minister before him, went off on just such a tangent himself, determined to be less reliant on being pushed around by the U.S., likening the relationship to a mouse sleeping with an elephant, and exploring enlarging trade with Europe, as an alternative. And that fizzled monumentally. The bulk of Canada's trade is, naturally enough, with the U.S.; their market enormous, their population ten  times the size of Canada's, as next-door neighbours.

Justin Trudeau, in fact, has done more than his share of bungling trade agreements with other countries in an effort to be less dependent on the U.S. While the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement came close to being signed during a 'final' meeting between the countries' heads, Justin Trudeau chose to throw a spanner in works to the surprise of Japan and other nations, after he had introduced Canada's non-negotiable focus on women, gays and workplace standards and nothing was signed. Now, in a panic, Canada is prepared to be the first to ratify the CPTPP whose original name he insisted be changed to include the words "comprehensive and progressive", which neatly sums up his ideological vision.

After he scuppered that deal, he went directly to China where his ideals including "comprehensive and progressive", his arrogance in teaching China what a free trade deal should entail to please Canada's Liberal-led government -- concerned with the treatment of women and gays in the context of a free trade agreement excited both puzzlement and outrage in China -- that one was left floundering for air and nothing was signed. His trip to India which showed the world Trudeau's focus on beguiling costumery, also came up short of trade deals.

And now his absolute Liberal dedication to preserving Quebec's fondness for ripping off the Canadian consuming public in protectionism through quotas on milk, eggs and poultry drew anger first from the European Union which in trade talks attempted to steer Canada away from that degree of subsidies, although needless to say the EU does its own share of the very same as does the United States, despite President Trump's denials and protestations of Canada playing unfair with its traditional supply management system in view of the Quebec lobby and voting patterns.

"That's going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada", Trump promised, after initiating a trade war, insisting on American protectionism in steel and aluminum imports was a matter of national security. Evidently considering extending it to the auto sector as well, again invoking national security. So Trudeau tells Trump that Canada won't be pushed around, and Trump tells Trudeau he's an ungrateful wretch and the contest for dumbfoolery is on.

“There’s a bit of a patriotic boost going on these past few days,” chuckled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an event hosted the other day by the supply-managed farmers who have been celebrating that we’re all blaming Trump for this mess instead of their politically powerful protectionist racket, the primary culprit. They were even giving out free milk and eggs near Parliament Hill, Tuesday. Trudeau has reason to raise a glass himself, now that this rush of pent-up anti-Trump Canadian catharsis has obscured how much he too is to blame for this trade-war disaster.
Largely missed in the sudden and furious reaction to Trump’s salty tweets Sunday was a report by CBC’s Rob Russo on The National that night, which clarifies just how wonderfully it appears trade talks were going between Canada and the U.S. That is, until Trudeau held his post-G7 press conference to remind Trump that Canada would “not be pushed around” by any American president and called the president’s treatment of Canada “kind of insulting.”
Trudeau wasn’t wrong, of course, but his comments were clearly ill-timed. Russo reported that Trump had offered a major giveaway to Trudeau in a NAFTA meeting on the G7 sidelines, finally agreeing to waive his longstanding demand for a sunset clause, the automatic expiry of the deal if it wasn’t renewed every five years, which had been one of the last sticking points. Russo said that Trump’s sudden concession was “surprising (to) his own chief negotiator, according to people who were there, and people (there) think that it’s great.” At the end of the summit, with a NAFTA deal perhaps within grasp, the celebrating was underway. Then came the news conference.
Kevin Libin, Financial Post

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland speak at a press 

conference in Ottawa on Thursday, May 31, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle