If you believe what you read in the national newspaper of record or hear on the national broadcaster, you could be forgiven for thinking that our very future as a sovereign nation hangs in the balance as one fake deadline after another slips past without a deal.
"Canada only signs on to good trade agreements," Justin and Chrystia assure us, as if NAFTA was a good deal in the first place. I suppose it depends on which of "us" you're talking about. From the perspective of working class Canadians, it's been an unmitigated disaster, so what's the rush to sign on to NAFTA II?
The current thinking among the pundits seems to be that our negotiators are hanging tough in hopes of getting a better deal after the mid-terms. That's delusional. The folks eagerly awaiting a "blue wave" to give Congress to the Dems are by and large the same people who assured the world over and over that Trump was never going to be president, and they've still got their heads up their arseholes.
They seriously underestimate the contempt with which a very large slice of America views the coastal elites who presume to know what's good for them. That won't change no matter how many more exposes or op-eds by anonymous White House insiders the NYT publishes between now and November. In fact, the only thing the Times could do to turn Trump's base against him is to come out with an endorsement of him.
The CBC's Neil Macdonald recently wrote an opinion piece claiming that it's impossible to reach a deal because Trump is an habitual liar. That's true enough, but so are the folks who continue to tell me how great the original NAFTA was.
In spite of his tenuous relationship with "truth," Donald Trump is capable of the occasional searing insight. His observation that Justin Trudeau is "dishonest and weak" was right on the money.
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