Vehicles cross the Ambassador Bridge as viewed from Windsor, Ont.DAVE CHIDLEY/The Canadian Press
The end of the latest U.S. election cycle could represent the beginning of President Barack Obama's trade agenda - and with it, potential irritants for its trading partners, including Canada.
Mr. Obama's ascent to power two years ago came with a wave of Democratic lawmakers who equated free-trade agreements with lost American jobs. The administration has completed trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, but has yet to seek congressional approval. In a period dominated by economic issues, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk had a modest public profile.
Tuesday's midterm elections change the political calculus on trade.
The anti-trade element of the Democratic Party has been muted, giving the administration freer rein to pursue the free-trade agreements most believe will be necessary if Mr. Obama was serious when he pledged earlier this year to double U.S. exports by 2015.
An emphasis on trade will also allow the President to turn away from an unpopular domestic agenda.
"You are going to have a President coming back after having taken a beating, looking for something to do over the last two years of his mandate," said Gary Hufbauer, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington and a former trade official at the U.S. Treasury Department. "Trade is an area where he could do things if he puts an emphasis on it."
Mr. Obama is set to meet his South Korean counterpart next week at the Group of 20 Summit in Seoul. Many analysts predict he will promise a serious push to complete a bilateral trade agreement between the two countries as part of the U.S.'s larger diplomatic effort to offset the influence of China and North Korea in Southeast Asia.
The way Mr. Hufbauer sees it, the South Korea agreement will clear the way for finalizing deals with Colombia and Panama, followed by the Trans Pacific Partnership, involving Pacific Rim nations such as New Zealand, Chile and Vietnam. The U.S. could even insist on completing the stalled Doha negotiations at the World Trade Organization, Mr. Hufbauer said.
Engagement by the United States on trade would change the game.
The country's political division on the issue - a Wall Street Journal poll in October showed 53 per cent of the population said free-trade agreements had hurt the U.S. - is one the biggest factors holding up Doha, said John Curtis, a distinguished fellow at the Waterloo, Ont.-based Centre for International Governance Innovation and a former chief economist at Canada's Trade Department.
Still, trade will be a "dog fight" in Congress, he said.
Many of the Republicans who won on Tuesday are part of the Tea Party movement, which has a nationalistic bent. The tradeoff for support on broader free-trade agreements could be protectionist measures such as "Buy America" stipulations in spending programs, Mr. Hufbauer said.
If freer trade leads to stronger growth in the world's biggest economy, then some minor trade irritants might be the price for U.S. trading partners such as Canada. That's a bitter pill for Jayson Myers, the head of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, one of the country's biggest industry groups.
U.S. politicians "are more sensitive to local politics than ever," Mr. Myers said from Montreal. "Any piece of economic legislation coming out of Congress now has the potential to have some form of protectionism wrapped around it."