Quote:
Originally Posted by octothorp
There is absolutely zero upside to conceding anything at this point; any NAFTA renegotiation is going to take months and likely years, and establishing early on that Trump can score easy political points at home by getting Canada to make concessions is literally the worst approach we could take. Whenever Trump feels the need for a win, he'll be look at other elements of Canadian trade he can take shots at.
We want this to be a negotiation between seasoned bureaucrats from both sides who are looking out for their own industries. It'll be much longer and more boring than Trump has the attention span for. Yeah, we should be open to giving up something like Supply Management in the course of negotiation... we'd probably be better off having those agricultural sectors under a similar subsidy system to what we use in other sectors, but that should be a concession made in negotiation for US concessions, not something that's offered up like a white flag against the first twitter salvo.
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This is the most important thing. Besides his desperation here, he doesn't have the interest, let alone the attention span, to engage in a long, protracted negotiation. That's the one nice thing about negotiating against someone with the emotional maturity of a child. Definitely a chance for Canada and Mexico to actually come out ahead in the end.