After President Trump announced he would renegotiate NAFTA, Canada's Ambassador to the United States David MacNaughton indicated that assurances were given that it is not the target of the renegotiation. But MacNaughton also acknowledged Canada could experience "collateral damage" as a result of the renegotiation.
I am far more convinced by the latter than I am the former. If NAFTA is to be renegotiated then how can Canada not be adversely affected? Canada isn't a minor party to the agreement. In fact, it was Canada which initiated the agreement when then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney proposed to President Reagan that Canada and the United States have a bilateral free trade agreement in 1985. The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was negotiated in 1987 and went into effect in 1989 after Mulroney's Tory government was re-elected in the 1988 election which will forever be known in Canada as the free trade election.
My guess is this will cause the Trudeau government to accelerate their embrace of China. Of course, the Obama Administration did its share when it jettisoned the Keystone Pipeline X which forced the then Tory government of Stephen Harper to turn to Beijing for greater energy opportunities despite strong reservations about their human rights record.
As for the United States, I fear Trump's renegotiation efforts will cause significant economic disruptions and return us to recessionary times.
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