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.
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And after Kim and Trump’s cordial summit, Canada might just rank as the country least able to get along with the U.S. right now. That can’t just be Trump’s fault. From throwing a stink bomb into NAFTA talks with their “progressive” demands, to bringing in protectionist union leader Jerry Dias to consult on the negotiations, to their defiant defence of the unjustified tariff wall protecting Canada’s dairy barons, the Liberals have not done an excellent job of figuring out how to make a deal with a man who literally loves nothing more than making deals. After nearly a year of discussions, things seem at an all-time low. That cannot be blamed all on one man.
