Quote:Oh Canada, What the Hell Is Going On?
In the late hours of September 30 a small bevy of leaks indicated Canada and the United States agreed to terms that will allow Canada to remain in the newest iteration of both countries’ premier trade relationship: the North American Free Trade Agreement. In the wee hours of October 1, said rumors were confirmed and fleshed out by both governments.

It has been a long road. Ronald Reagan initiated the process, George HW Bush finished the negotiations, Bill Clinton got the deal ratified, and George W Bush bridged the NAFTA relationship to North American security issues. Donald Trump has railed against NAFTA since the very beginning, and three decades later he made the abandonment and/or forcible renegotiation of every trade deal on the books a key piece of his presidential campaign.

The part of the American business community that depends upon international manufactures trade is hugely relieved – Canada and Mexico comprise about one-third of the total American trade portfolio. Simply walking away from NAFTA, as Trump often threatened, would have at a minimum triggered a Texas-centric American recession. Now businesses can look forward to revised rules-of-origin, agricultural access and dispute-resolution systems expressly modified to benefit American entities.

Overall changes to the trade pact are on the minor side: tweaks to dispute resolution mechanisms, increased requirements for local content in automobiles, improved access for digital firms both in the cloud and on the ground, minimum wage levels for some manufactured goods, greater access for U.S. agricultural products, and improved protection for intellectual property – particularly for pharmaceuticals. Overall, it’s a change in less than 5% of the original deal with most of the changes simply being updates to reflect the fact that it isn’t the 1980's anymore.

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