Stop the Hogs!

If Donald Trump kills NAFTA, Canada could benefit: Walkom

[ https://www.thestar.com/opinion/comment ... alkom.html ]

By Thomas Walkom National Affairs Columnist Fri., Nov. 11, 2016

We’d still have free trade. But U.S. corporations would no longer have the right to override Canadian law.

Donald Trump says he’ll tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement if he can’t renegotiate a better deal. That has spooked Canadians.

We should relax. We should take a deep breath. Depending on how it’s done, getting rid of NAFTA could work for us. Even without NAFTA, goods could continue to flow tariff-free back and forth across the Canada-U. S. border. That’s because the original Canada-U.S. Free Agreement of 1989, which eliminated most of these tariffs, has never been repealed.

MORE:

[ https://www.thestar.com/opinion/comment ... alkom.html ]

Will the renegotiation of NAFTA include bulk water exports?

[ http://canadians.org/blog/will-renegoti ... er-exports ]

November 13, 2016 - 8:04 am

During the recent U.S. presidential election, Donald J. Trump described the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as "the single worst trade deal ever approved" by the United States. Shortly after Trump's upset win on November 8, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated, "I think it's important that we be open to talking about trade deals. If the Americans want to talk about NAFTA, I'm more than happy to talk about it." The Canadian ambassador to the United States has also noted, "We've got some things I think we'd like to see, and happy to have that discussion with him when he settles in."

Trump will be settling in very soon. He will be sworn into office on January 20, 2017. And Politico reports that a Trump transition team document suggests the Trump administration could trigger NAFTA's six-month exit clause as quickly as 200 days after taking office. That would be around August 9, 2017. While Trump's threat to leave NAFTA may not come to fruition, this all suggests that there could be a very intensive period of NAFTA talks from January to August. Exploratory talks between the Trudeau government and the Trump administration are likely even beginning now.

Trudeau is not signalling what he'll concede to keep the deal with the United States, nor do we know what specific changes Trump may be seeking.

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The Council of Canadians calls on Trudeau not to make concessions to the United States on water. We demand that rather than allowing water to be taken out of watersheds in Canada, that he negotiate water out of NAFTA.

Brent Patterson's blog
Political Director of the Council of Canadians
[ http://canadians.org/blogs/brent-patterson ]

The Council of Canadians calls for transparency in NAFTA renegotiation process

[ http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-p ... ation-proc ]

By Brent Patterson | November 11, 2016

The Trudeau government has signalled to the incoming Trump administration that it’s willing to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"Canada's ambassador to the United States says the Liberal government would be 'happy' to renegotiate NAFTA with president-elect Donald Trump's team,” the CBC reported.

“Obviously any trade deal can be improved, and to the degree that the president-elect of the United States wants to see improvements to NAFTA, we'd be happy to sit down and talk,” Ambassador David MacNaughton told CBC News Network's Power & Politics. “We've got some things I think we'd like to see, and happy to have that discussion with him when he settles in.”

Those "things" could be renegotiated. The Liberal government is not revealing to the public what those “things” are yet.

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The Council of Canadians has long called for the renegotiation of NAFTA. This past June, an Angus Reid Institute poll found that only one in four Canadians support the deal, with more than one-third wanting it renegotiated.

With that in mind, we are calling for an open, transparent and democratic process, not another secretly negotiated deal. Public hearings should be held. There should also be consultations with First Nations and Indigenous peoples.

We call on the Liberal government to be open and honest about the NAFTA renegotiation process and immediately disclose what its seeking with the Trump administration.

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Brent Patterson is the Political Director at the Council of Canadians. He works with the Council's chairperson Maude Barlow, its campaigners, organizers and chapters across the country on trade, energy, water, and health care issues. The Council has political staff in Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Halifax, Delhi, Cape Town and Mexico City. You can follow Brent on Twitter @CBrentPatterson.