Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson.The Globe and Mail
Canada finds itself in the odd and slightly uncomfortable position of waiting on two large trade deals, one in the Pacific region and the other with the European Union.
The Liberal government favours both deals, the negotiations for which began long ago under the Harper Conservatives. No domestic opposition of consequence exists, apart from the usual grumblers who don't like free trade, period, but who are are no longer consequential, except in their own minds. Neither deal, however, is a sure thing, for reasons that have nothing to do with Canada.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries is ready for approval. The trouble is that the United States, TPP's largest country and the one that drove the negotiations, has turned politically protectionist. Republican Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both oppose the TPP, as does, of course, Ms. Clinton's left-wing Democratic adversary, Bernie Sanders. There is no chance Congress will approve the TPP before the November election. And it's difficult to imagine approval if the occupant of the White House, who will take office next January, stands opposed.
That leaves the narrow window of the "lame dunk" congressional session, after the election but before the new administration takes office, for the TPP to squeeze through Congress. That window will open after a presidential campaign – from primaries through to the actual election – in which free trade has taken a whipping, with particular scorn for "free-trade deals" that candidates assert have sold out American workers.
Ms. Clinton, who favoured TPP while secretary of state during the first Obama administration, swung against it early in this presidential sweepstakes for reasons relating entirely to her political fight against Mr. Sanders. As secretary of state, she was part of an administration dedicated to paying more attention to Asia. The TPP was aimed, in American eyes, as a huge trade deal to offset somewhat the influence of China in the region. It therefore had an economic ambition and a geopolitical one, which Ms. Clinton, with her international experience, once understood. Perhaps she still does, but being secretary of state and a presidential candidate are two different vocations.
Given the U.S. uncertainty, it is not too early for the Trudeau government to put out diplomatic feelers to other Trans-Pacific Partnership countries, indicating Canada's willingness to negotiate bilateral deals if the TPP craters.
If the United States is foolish enough to let slip the TPP opportunity to expand trade, there's no reason for Canada, with a different political culture, not to take advantage of U.S. parochialism. Canada was already in preliminary talks with Japan before that country decided to jump into the TPP negotiations.
Canada could dust off the bilateral work done with Japan and push for a deal, knowing that Japan could protect its rice farmers in any agreement with Canada which, in turn, could retain its prohibitive protection of supply-managed farmers.
Those farmers, who oppose all free-trade agreements that even marginally threaten their cartels, were promised a staggering $4.3-billion by the Harper Conservatives if the TPP and the European Union deals took effect. It will be fascinating to watch the Trudeau government deal with the powerful supply-managed lobbies whose cartels and protection Liberal governments have embraced as fervently as did Conservative ones.
The other trade deal, with the EU, was recently tweaked to alleviate concerns about clauses offering investors protection against capricious actions against their interests. The tweaking was supposed to satisfy European critics, but many of them still remain opposed to the Canadian deal, especially in Germany and in the eccentric European Parliament with its crazy quilt of factions.
The Canada-EU agreement has to be ratified by the European Parliament and by all the member states, a process sure to drag on for a long time. There is no guarantee that all the European ducks will line up behind the Canadian deal, since the deal is being held hostage by critics who also oppose a free-trade deal with the United States. They think the Canadian deal is a template for a U.S. treaty and, as such, should be killed.
Irony of ironies. Before the EU agreed to negotiate, it sent a team of ambassadors across Canada to make sure the provinces would not sabotage successful negotiations. Now, it's Canada that ought to be worried about some European governments or parliamentarians sabotaging the deal.