{"id":42,"date":"2018-08-17T03:35:57","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T03:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/?p=42"},"modified":"2018-10-04T20:04:11","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T20:04:11","slug":"why-canadas-nafta-negotiations-are-not-working-part-3-is-canada-the-third-wheel-in-nafta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/2018\/08\/17\/why-canadas-nafta-negotiations-are-not-working-part-3-is-canada-the-third-wheel-in-nafta\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Canada\u2019s NAFTA Negotiations Are Not Working Part III \u2013 Is Canada the Third Wheel in NAFTA?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am hopeful that this will be my last post on why Canada\u2019s NAFTA negotiations are not working as I would very much like to see our great country move beyond North American trade discussions.\u00a0 Recently, Raymond Bachand, Quebec\u2019s NAFTA negotiator, spoke to CBC<\/a> about NAFTA negotiations and said he was not worried that the United States and Mexico are engaging in bilateral talks without Canada.\u00a0 In his opinion, the United States and Mexico are discussing automobiles and one or two issues which are of interest only to the United States and Mexico.\u00a0 With respect to automobiles, Mr. Bachand feels that Canada should not be worried because Canada\u2019s position is the same as the United States and the United States would negotiate much harder against Mexico than Canada.\u00a0 Furthermore, Mr. Bachand stated that once the automobile issues are sorted out, the talks would once again become trilateral and the remaining major issues would be sorted out.<\/p>\n

I want to believe Mr. Bachand, but with all due respect, it is difficult to believe him when President Trump is expressly stating that the United States is not currently negotiating with Canada and that Canada has to wait.\u00a0 Furthermore, while the United States and Mexico are discussing automobiles, the United States is threatening Canada with an auto tariff!\u00a0 So, in a supposed trilateral agreement involving automobiles, Canada is not at the table and is also threatened with an auto tariff if Canada doesn\u2019t come to an agreement NAFTA.\u00a0 How did negotiations go so wrong?<\/p>\n

Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, is on record stating that he is \u201chopeful that in the next several days we’ll have a breakthrough\u201d and that there \u201care still some difficult issues to work through, as there always are at the end.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, Robert Lighthizer feels that negotiations are almost at an end.\u00a0 Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo<\/a> is also of the same mind and feels that a deal may be reached at the end of this month.\u00a0 In conclusion, both the United States and Mexican representatives feel like they are close to a NAFTA deal and a Canadian representative feels like discussions will be approaching the endgame after the United States and Mexico complete their talks without Canada.\u00a0 It makes sense that Canada has no idea what is going on as it is not at the negotiating table.\u00a0 To rub some extra salt into the NAFTA wound, Lighthizer said “I hope once we get [a deal] with Mexico then Canada will come along. I feel reasonably good about that.”<\/p>\n

It now appears that in trade matters, Canada is the third wheel.\u00a0 Lighthizer\u2019s comments clearly indicate that Canada\u2019s interests will not be heard initially and that the United States hopes that Canada will simply accept most of the provisions discussed.\u00a0 I do not read all the news so I do not know if Mexico is objecting to this arrangement.\u00a0 Certainly, this is a marked change from the initial positioning where it was Canada and Mexico together negotiating with the United States.\u00a0 It now appears to be the United States and Mexico negotiating with Canada.\u00a0 Shocking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am hopeful that this will be my last post on why Canada\u2019s NAFTA negotiations are not working as I would very much like to see our great country move beyond North American trade discussions.\u00a0 Recently, Raymond Bachand, Quebec\u2019s NAFTA negotiator, spoke to CBC about NAFTA negotiations and said he was not worried that the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Why Canada\u2019s NAFTA Negotiations Are Not Working Part III \u2013 Is Canada the Third Wheel in NAFTA?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contracts","category-negotiations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carlsonng.com\/carlsonngcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}