Canadian heartthrob and panda-lover (and Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau was in DC yesterday to meet with President Trump, and there were some brief discussions of trade:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: ... We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. We’ll be tweaking it. We’ll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries. It’s a much less severe situation than what’s taking place on the southern border. On the southern border, for many, many years, the transaction was not fair to the United States. It was an extremely unfair transaction. We’re going to work with Mexico, we’re going to make it a fair deal for both parties. I think that we’re going to get along very well with Mexico; they understand and we understand.
So for Canada, NAFTA will involve just tweaks, ones that will benefit both countries. What kind of tweaks do they have in mind? There was also this statement:
The United States and Canada also recognize the importance of cooperation to promote economic growth, provide benefits to our consumers and businesses, and advance free and fair trade. We will continue our dialogue on regulatory issues and pursue shared regulatory outcomes that are business-friendly, reduce costs, and increase economic efficiency without compromising health, safety, and environmental standards. We will work together regarding labor mobility in various economic sectors.
I'm not sure what this means, but allowing TransCanada to build the Keystone pipeline and eliminating various U.S. regulations are likely to be seen as a positive in the Canadian business community.
