O Canada

With just minutes left on the clock, the United States and Canada agreed to a deal to keep NAFTA a three-country deal.

According to Bloomberg News…

The U.S. and Canada have agreed on a trade deal that would save the North American Free Trade Agreement as a trilateral bloc, according to three people familiar with the matter.

President Donald Trump has approved the developments and the expectation is that an agreement will be announced on Sunday night, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian officials are working on the final touches.

U.S. and Canadian negotiators have been negotiating around the clock this weekend to make a Sunday midnight deadline that would allow the countries to sign the deal as the final act before Mexico’s outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto leaves office at the end of November.

Also, Trump’s son-in-law gets a credit for helping to get this done…

Some people familiar with the talks credited Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner for helping smooth the path toward a deal. When it looked like negotiations had stalled or broken down due to friction between the U.S. and Canadian sides, Kushner kept talks going with aides close to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, including Gerald Butts and Katie Telford, three people said.

Lighthizer and Kushner were at the USTR office in Washington on Sunday afternoon negotiating final details by conference call with the Canadians in Ottawa. U.S. officials have been keeping Trump in the loop on every step since Friday, two people said.

I wondered where he was.

This now keeps both Canada and Mexico in a deal with the United States and trade between the three countries flowing.

The deal with Canada was in jeopardy after President Trump announced in August that the U.S had struck an agreement with Mexico and Canada could join if they wanted. Also, at the United Nations meetings last week, in the 80-minute press conference, Trump mentioned a lil nugget that received very little press coverage. Trump refused a meeting with Trudeau saying he was not serious about getting a trade deal done.

So a deal is made to keep goods flowing between our countries and hopefully tariffs lowered. I am still somewhat perplexed about why the President was so hell-bent on re-working this deal in all aspects. I understand the Canadian dairy aspect but I have yet to read where the U.S. was getting totally manhandled on this front.

I understand the bluster with China but Canada? Canadians are wonderful neighbors and hockey fans to boot.

So mark one in the win-win-win column (hopefully) that this deal is approved and then Trudeau and Trump can be buds again. I would hate to see the movie Canadian Bacon come to fruition.

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