Enough about NAFTA

The folks at the Toronto Star are mighty pleased with themselves today. Seems their official Trump fib-tracker, Daniel Dale, has been in DC long enough now to have cultivated a source, apparently at Bloomberg, and after a year and a half, he's finally found himself a scoop!

More than a scoop... a BOMBSHELL!

You certainly don't find those in the Star everyday!

The Bloomberg source told Dale that in off-the-record remarks Trump had told them that he's not about to make any compromises with the Canadian side.

So the talks are over for now, the "deadline" not met.


The reason there was a deadline is because the Americans are keen to push this "new" NAFTA through before the newly elected, more leftish, less corrupt president Obrador takes office in December. Nieto is seen as an easy mark in Washington, whereas Obrador might actually stand up for the interests of Mexicans.

No real danger of Canadian team Trudeau-Freeland standing up for Canadian workers. Or Canadian dairy farmers, for that matter. Selling-out has been the modus operandi of both Canadian ruling parties since at least the Avro Arrow era, so that's nothing new. Canada has never really had an authentic industrial policy, settling instead for a branch-plant economic model.

NAFTA was the most noxious bone jammed up the keister of Canada's working class during my life-time. It devastated the industrial heartland of southern Ontario. Just one example; Magna, the Canadian auto-parts giant, built their first Mexican facility in the early nineties. Today they have 32 plants there and employ 28,000 Mexicans. Where are the Canadians who have benefited from this? In the corporate offices and on the shareholder list, that's where.

That reality has nonetheless never stood in the way of Canada's elite opinion makers crowing about the glories of NAFTA. This should not come as a surprise. After all, these are the same people who believe that working at an Amazon warehouse for $30,000 a year is a "good solid middle-class job."

Unfortunately, when our craven toadies at the top have ensured our branch-plant status for generations, they don't hold much of a hand in these renegotiations. As much as we enjoy mocking Trump, he's evidently smart enough to have figured this out.

So Justin and Chrystia, while trying to do their best to make their inevitable capitulation look like a good deal for Canada, have been derailed by Daniel Dale's bombshell.


Does anybody at the Star really believe that we're going to get a better deal next week or next month?