Farmers are likely to have no clue what renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement might bring them until well into the discussions, says an agriculture and food analyst.
Economists are in a similar situation.
“The difficulty right now is that you can make an analysis one day and the next week you have to revise it, based on a pronouncement from the White House,” said Bertrand Montel of Montreal-based analytical firm CERYSSYS.
“I have difficulty seeing any sort of consistency in what they are pursuing in terms of trade.”
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Montel said Canada’s best hope would be to remove non-tariff barriers to trade that now exist, and the best way to do that would be to agree to Canada-U.S. harmonizing of many regulations.
However, U.S. president Donald Trump’s administration often appears to want to be able to interrupt trade to get what it wants, so it might show little interest in making trade flow more freely.
“I’m not sure that this is the kind of administration that would want to go any distance towards harmonization,” said Montel.
Fortunately for farmers and agriculture, the new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, is a long-time advocate of free trade and integration.
“The good thing is that the secretary of agriculture doesn’t really fit the model over in the administration,” said Montel.
However, he might face an uphill struggle convincing his colleagues to be as open to free-flowing trade, he said.
