Let's just forget it, go back to how it was before the free trade pact. It all just seems not worth the aggravation.
Wow....that's incredible!
Prime Minister Trudeau has just spent two weeks promoting Canada to governors, mayors, and congressmen about NAFTA.
It seems he's been very effective as the last time Trump commented on the most under-covered story of modern America...then he said "it's good, maybe we can reach agreement."
I have spent years trying to unpack 150 years of history, from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the 1857 Pig War....agreements that cover exactly where the channel between countries lies in the straight of Juan De Fuca, to water use rights of the Columbia, to wild fire fighting, to cross border shopping to air quality and manufacturing cars, airplanes and how much of our oil you can have.
If you remove one section/paragraph/senbtence hundreds, maybe thousands of other issues arise.
It simply isn't possible that Donald Trump can grasp the complexity and necessity of NAFTA. He doesn't understand nuance, he fails at situational decision making.
What he is doing here is taking advantage of the lack of detailed coverage and what is at risk in the US, and making Canada an "enemy", which is what he always does, just notice how quickly he turns on his own staff when the going gets rough. It is a very dangerous game, which kind of proves my point about complexity...as whatever he says will be reported and magnified here which will feed a growing anti-American attitude.
Here's an example....90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. 75% of them shop regularly in the US in what is said to be an $18 billion a year boon for the US. That trade comes into Canada tax free, tariff free through a subsection addendum to NAFTA which also involves all ten provinces and three territories.
The US mirrors Canada's tax policy on retail trade. Now, change one line somewhere else that costs Canada a lot of money, they will naturally look at that load of cash going into America pockets and...
..well its called a trade war for a reason and what would likely happen is the provinces say "screw you" and start applying provincial sales tax and that trade gets cut in half. That's thousands of retail jobs in the US. To go back to pre NAFTA on that point alone would turn Northwest Washington into a huge ghost town. The city of Detroit has already begun lobbying in order to save those jobs.
As we have seen, Canada under Trudeau is more than ready to fight regardless of hardships as we saw with Boeing and their attempt to halt a sale of Bombardier jest to Delta; the day after filing Canada cancelled billions of $ in fighter planes which will not be restored even though they won in the courts.
So in the end, you have one country fully informed and ready, politicians who understand the complexities and results against a president who thinks he's doing a real estate deal. I shouldn't tell anyone this but cancelling NAFTA cold end the supply of fresh drinking water to a few thousand towns in the US..."there is a lot at stake" is an understatement.
I have some fears, as this province has little to fall back on, but I know in the end the US will take the greater share of the ****-kicking.
My greatest fear though, is what could likely be the end of 150 years of the greatest international friendship in history. Your president hasn't done you any favors, he is feeding what was a nascent anti-American attitude.