The death of NAFTA was confirmed this month when Washington refused — again — to obey a trade tribunal requiring it to let Canadian softwood lumber into the U.S. duty-free.
Yet the dying has been going on a long time. In some ways, it is as if NAFTA never lived.
Canada's federal government finds this hard to accept. The governing Liberals, once stoutly opposed to the Canada-U.S. free trade deals, now swear by them.
Prime Minister Paul Martin seems to think a light slap on the American wrist — say, punitive duties on California wines applied at some vaguely indeterminate time in the future — will pressure the U.S. into doing what Canada wants.
But the point is that the U.S. is not abiding by NAFTA rules because, in a fundamental way, it does not intend to — and never did.
Particularly useful is Walkom's historical perspective: businesses on Canadian soil have steadily demanded added integration with the the U.S. at any cost since before Canada was a country. There has been some subtle improvement in that this time out nobody's actively calling for annexation (to my knowledge), but for the most part the song remains the same.
Take a look.
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