Blayne Haggart, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brock, wrote a piece recently published in The Conversation about the impact the North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiations will have in Canada.

Haggart writes:

The most remarkable thing in the immediate aftermath of the announcement that Canada and the United States had concluded their North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations is the general relief it seems to be eliciting.

Typical of the mood is the contention of the Globe and Mail’s Campbell Clark, who opines that the deal limits direct damage to the Canadian economy via “a series of concessions that the Liberal government accepted to buy peace.”

Unfortunately, the peace promised by the newly renamed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is likely to be temporary, its true price still unclear.

The USMCA may stop most U.S. harassment for now. (American steel and aluminium tariffs are still in place, after all).

But two key sections of the USMCA — the six-year mandatory review and a limitation on negotiating free-trade agreements with non-market economies (in other words, China) — suggest that this temporary armistice has been bought at a cost.

That cost is placing the U.S. in a position of unprecedented authority over its neighbours’ ability to craft their own domestic and international economic agendas.

Continue reading the full article here.