Donald Trump Praised The Agreement As “The Largest, Most Significant, Modern, And Balanced Trade Agreement In History
Now He Claims Canada & Mexico:
Have “Never Been Good To Us On Trade”
This is why pandering to Trump’s whims only leads to more demands. He is not negotiating in good faith.
While most Canadians can see Donald Trump’s dishonest ‘negotiating tactics’ (AKA outright lies) for what they are, there are some who continue to imagine that Donald Trump is negotiating in good faith.
Whether out of fear of criticizing the U.S. President, or a deep need to deny the possibility that our powerful neighbour has chosen to deliberately undermine Canada’s economy to wipe out our sovereignty, some Canadians continue to claim that if we just give Trump what he wants, all will be well.
The problem with this is that Donald Trump is a dishonest broker.
We cannot rely on what he says.
Past commitments seem to have little meaning for him.
Truth can become lies, and lies can become truth.
For example, let’s look at how Donald Trump praised the Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement at the signing ceremony on November 30, 2018:
“The USMCA is the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history. All of our countries will benefit greatly. It is probably the largest trade deal ever made, also. In the United States, the new trade pact will support high-paying manufacturing jobs and promote greater access for American exports across the range of sectors, including our farming, manufacturing, and service industries.
As part of our agreement, the United States will be able to lock in our market access to Canada and Mexico, and greatly expand our agricultural exports — something we’ve been wanting to do for many years. This is an amazing deal for our farmers, and also allows them to use cutting-edge biotechnology, and eliminates non-scientific barriers.
Our nations have also agreed to innovate new measures to ensure fair competition and promote high wages, and higher wages, for U.S. and North American autoworkers. The autoworkers are a tremendous beneficiary.”
Read this part again:
“The USMCA is the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history. All of our countries will benefit greatly. It is probably the largest trade deal ever made, also. In the United States, the new trade pact will support high-paying manufacturing jobs and promote greater access for American exports across the range of sectors, including our farming, manufacturing, and service industries.”
The largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history.
This is what Donald Trump said about a trade agreement that was renegotiated at his request. He signed it. He praised it.
And it’s still in place.
This is essential to understand.
NAFTA 2.0 (AKA, Trump’s trade deal) is still in place at this very moment.
The trade relationship between Canada, the United States, and Mexico is thus the relationship Donald Trump wanted.
Canada has not violated the agreement.
Mexico has not violated the agreement.
It remains in force.
Yet, none of that matters anymore to Donald Trump.
He has decided to try and rewrite reality.
He now says Canada and Mexico have “never been good to us on trade.”
“Mexico and Canada have never been good to us on trade. They’ve treated us very unfairly on trade and we’ll be able to make that up very quickly because we don’t need the products they have,” Trump says.”
Once in a while, Trump throws in some other concerns like the border when trying to justify his violation of the Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement. But his claims are undermined not only by his past praise for the deal he signed but also by the fact that he is threatening tariffs on a stunning number of countries.
For example, Trump just threatened tariffs on the BRICS countries:
He is also threatening the European Union with tariffs:
Canadians must understand this and internalize this: Donald Trump doesn’t like trade. He sees it as zero-sum. To him, there is no mutually beneficial trade. Someone must be a winner, and someone must be a loser. He intends to try and replace domestic U.S. tax revenue with tariff revenue. Though that is not possible, even an attempt to move in that direction would require huge tariffs on countless nations.
Trump also wants to divide Canada internally and weaken our nation, to soften us up so we’ll give in to tariffs without retaliatory counter-tariffs, to pit one region against another, and potentially erase our status as a sovereign nation altogether.
This means that fawning attempts to appease Trump’s claimed concerns will only encourage more demands.
The real leverage we have as Canadians is the fact that a reduction in Canada-US trade will drive up prices for consumers on both sides of the border, and the fact that Americans view Canadians quite positively. If American consumers see their prices going up, and if they see their government acting hostile towards a friendly nation, political pressure will build on Trump to reverse course. And Trump ultimately wants to be popular, and elected officials want to get re-elected.
This is why Canada must show strength and must be unified in our response. We must be prepared to retaliate with dollar-for-dollar tariffs on the U.S., and we need to publicly reach out to the European Union, India, Australia, Japan, and other nations/trade blocs to deepen our trade ties with more reliable partners.
We must take these actions because Donald Trump is a dishonest broker, and we can’t afford to stake Canada’s economic future on believing what he says.
Spencer Fernando
https://spencerfernando.com/2025/01/30/donald-trump-praised-the-canada-us-mexico-trade-agreement-as-the-largest-most-significant-modern-and-balanced-trade-agreement-in-history-now-he-claims-canada-mexico-have-never-been-goo/
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