{"id":180173,"date":"2018-09-06T01:45:55","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T05:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=180173"},"modified":"2018-09-06T01:45:55","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T05:45:55","slug":"trump-trudeau-raise-nafta-brinkmanship-muse-walking-away-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/09\/06\/trump-trudeau-raise-nafta-brinkmanship-muse-walking-away-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump, Trudeau raise NAFTA brinkmanship, muse about walking away from deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cThat’s going to be fine for our country,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt won’t be fine for Canada.\u201d (File Photo<\/a>: Justin Trudeau\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau raised their trade brinkmanship to a new level Wednesday with each saying they were willing to walk away from the North American Free Trade Agreement if they don’t get what they want.<\/p>\n

Trudeau started the day by branding Trump a rule breaker to argue in favour of keeping a mechanism to resolve trade disputes, while Trump hours later saidCanada\u00a0had more to lose than the United States if the two countries can’t make a deal to preserve the three country NAFTA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s going to be fine for our country,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt won’t be fine for\u00a0Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bombast of the two leaders contrasted with the insistence of negotiators that the mood inside the room was constructive as talks hit what is being described as an intense phase. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland went out of her way to praise her counterpart, U.S. trade czar Robert Lighthizer, saying he was acting with \u201cgood faith\u201d and \u201cgood will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe atmosphere continues to be productive and constructive,\u201d she said Wednesday evening, adding that both countries’ officials would continue negotiating late into the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are making good progress. We continue to get a deeper and deeper understanding of the concerns on both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negotiations, now in their 13th month, are key to determining the economic and trade relationship among the three North American countries, with many workers’ and industries’ prospects hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Trump needs a win on trade ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November that will test the president’s ability to keep control of Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re not going to accept that we should have to sign a bad deal just because the president wants that,\u201d Trudeau told Edmonton radio station CHED.<\/p>\n

Trudeau offered some of his sharpest criticism of the unpredictable American president, saying that\u00a0Canada\u00a0won’t give an inch to Trump’s desire to scrap NAFTA’s Chapter 19 dispute resolution panels. The chapter allows companies to have their differences settled by independent arbiters \u2014 something Trump views as an infringement of U.S. sovereignty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to keep the Chapter 19 dispute resolution because that ensures that the rules are actually followed. And we know we have a president who doesn’t always follow the rules as they’re laid out,\u201d Trudeau said.<\/p>\n

Freeland, when asked about the comments, said she didn’t want to negotiate in public, but added: \u201cI agree with the prime minister in public all of the time, and in private 99.99 per cent of the time … He made some important comments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. and Mexico reached a side deal last month, leaving\u00a0Canada\u00a0to negotiate separately with the U.S.<\/p>\n

Trump hinted there might be progress towards a deal with\u00a0Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we’ve come a long way toward them treating us fairly,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

But other issues have yet to be worked out, including\u00a0Canada’s cultural exemption in NAFTA. Sources familiar with the Canadian bargaining position say the cultural exemption\u00a0Canada\u00a0has insisted on preserving since NAFTA talks reopened remains an 11th-hour sticking point.<\/p>\n

Part of the disagreement on culture revolves around\u00a0Canada’s decision to allow the broadcast of glitzy American Super Bowl commercials, a decision that irks Lighthizer.<\/p>\n

His annual report on barriers to U.S. trade this year singled out the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s decision in 2015 to ban the long-time practice of Canadian advertisers inserting their ads into the Super Bowl broadcast over the more popular American ones.<\/p>\n

The new rules went into effect in time for the Super Bowl in February 2017.<\/p>\n

American networks worried that the CRTC’s decision reduced the value of Canadian programming because the amount they pay for Super Bowl rights is determined by how much advertising they can sell in\u00a0Canada, Lighthizer’s report said.<\/p>\n

Lighthizer also said American broadcasters operating in border states have complained about Canadian counterparts picking up the U.S. signals and redistributing in\u00a0Canada\u00a0without consent. \u201cThe United States is exploring avenues to address these concerns,\u201d Lighthizer wrote.<\/p>\n

Canada\u00a0and the U.S. need to present an agreed-upon text to the U.S. Congress by Oct. 1 in order to join the deal the Trump administration signed with Mexico. Trump is threatening to move ahead on a deal with Mexico that excludes\u00a0Canada.<\/p>\n

The goal of this week’s talks is to reach a deal by Dec. 1 so Congress can give its approval to a revised three-country NAFTA before Mexico’s new president takes office.<\/p>\n

Freeland wouldn’t guess how much more time negotiators will need to come to some agreement. She compared the trade negotiation to the advice a midwife gave her on giving birth: \u201cYou never knew for sure how many contractions it would take to give birth to your child but you knew that each contraction was one contraction closer to the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that’s where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau raised their trade brinkmanship to a new level Wednesday with each saying they …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":166620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-mike-blanchfield","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}