Rachel Notley Goes to Trump's Washington

Over the life of this blog, I have offered some unsolicited advice to Canada's federal (here and here) and provincial (here, here and here) leadership about their relationships in the United States. Washington is a tricky minefield for any foreign government to navigate, never mind a sub-federal government like Alberta. Last week, the Premier announced that she would soon be headed to Washington for the first time since Mr. Trump took office.

Not in Alberta Anymore

I have been thinking about what I might tell Ms. Notley if she happened to call seeking my advice (I'm not waiting by the phone). So, I returned to those same blog posts and tried to read them in light of Trump. I'm pleased to say that I think much of what I had to say still holds. Indeed, one of the great things about Canada-U.S. relations is that it's generally pretty boring. The finer points of administrative cooperation over border security or supply-chain management in the private sector might be a bag of snores for many, but the fact that the relationship is boring has always been an asset for Canada. It's a relationship that is so deep that it will always take a lot of work for the occupants at 24 Sussex or 1600 Pennsylvania to unravel it.

Yet, Trump is,.... well,... Trump. President Trump's demonstrable willingness to throw established convention under the bus has left just about everyone scrambling to make sense of the road we are on.

I wish Ms. Notley well in the Imperial Capital, but my guess is she'll leave Trump's Washington with the same lack of clarity on issues of importance to Alberta as when she arrived.

Fixing the NAFTA?

President Trump is proving to be someone that keeps his word. As a candidate, he promised to take a wrecking ball to broad swaths of American policy at home and abroad. In his first weeks as president, Trump appears to be making good on that promise.

In this post, I'd like to address one of these promises: Scrapping the NAFTA. Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that Mexico had put its domestic stakeholder consultation wheels in motion in preparation for negotiations with the Trump Administration on a new post-NAFTA economic relationship.

I want to address three big points here: 1) the claim that the NAFTA is the "worst trade agreement ever concluded" and that foreigners have been taking advantage of the United States for decades; 2) what are the actual complaints about the NAFTA (no one is ever clear on this); and 3) what does "fixing the NAFTA" actually mean for President Trump?