Tuesday, August 30, 2005

More good commentary

Thomas Walkom writes on the death of NAFTA:
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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