President Trump dumps on trade deal with Canada, but not taken seriously

Farmers Forum staff

OTTAWA — American agricultural leaders are optimistic that President Donald Trump will come around and renew the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement (CUSMA).

That was the gist of a June 24 Washington D.C. conference whose participants saw a continued future for CUSMA, despite recent statements from Trump about pulling out of the deal.

After a G7 meeting in Paris, a reporter asked Trump about the trade agreement and he said: “To be honest with you, I’m not a big fan of it… I would rather leave it unsigned. We do better as a country if we don’t have an agreement.”

Apparently, that was just Trump being Trump, not a firm declaration of U.S. policy.

President and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation and former chief U.S. agricultural negotiator, Greg Doud, characterized the CUSMA trade agreement as a “gold standard document” and the template for continued free trade talks, in remarks delivered at the “Three Nations, One Table” event focused on North American agricultural trade.

While acknowledging persistent trade friction points, such as labor shortages, input costs, and Canadian tariff-rate quota administration, Doud conceded, “Every country in the world protects their farmers, we get that.”

But he also praised CUSMA’s built-in review process, arguing that a regular schedule of trilateral conversations allows the three nations to address technical irritants before they erupt into major political crises. The three countries were slated to conduct the first of such reviews on July 1.

The U.S. has a lot riding on agricultural trade with Canada, annually exporting CDN $42-billion in agricultural products north of the border. Canada exports a similar amount south of the border.