16


Issue 1 2019 - FBJNA


///CANADA


Rebuilding trade and trust under new deal


As


By Mark Cardwell owner


and president


of Dolbec International, a Quebec City-based customs brokerage and freight forwarder, Pierre Dolbec says he’s happy that Canada, the United States and Mexico were able to reach a new deal to replace the old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But Dolbec says he’s still


angry about the emotional and financial strain that many of his customers endured over


the past year - needlessly in his opinion - from the sudden imposition of American tariffs on some key Canadian exports


and the abrasive,


brinksmanship negotiating style of U.S. President Donald Trump. “It’s good that things


evolved successfully,” Dolbec said about the still-unratified U .S .-Cana da - M e xi c o Agreement (USCMA) that was signed by the three countries’ leaders in Buenos Aires on


Nov. 30 – just hours before a U.S.-imposed deadline on Canada to make a deal was set to expire. “We were afraid there would be no deal and the result would be chaos in business between Canada and the U.S. and a big logjam at the Mexican-U.S. border.” Though he welcomed an


end to the uncertainty over cross-border trade that began when Trump, who promised to revamp NAFTA and other U.S. trade deals when he took office in January 2017, Dolbec says the overnight


tripling of tariffs on imported aluminum and steel into the U.S. from many key allies, including Canada, caused real and lasting harm to many companies he provides services to in 2018. “I don’t pay for tariffs - my


clients do,” says Dolbec. Many of them, he adds, were faced with sudden slow downs and cancellations in orders and/ or steep increases in the cost of signed contracts once the U.S. tariffs were imposed in late May. He credited the Canadian


government for immediately stepping in to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money to affected companies. “We can’t let important


Canadian industries die due to the impulses of a U.S. leader who seems to govern according to his mood,” says Dolbec. “Under Trump there is no consistency (and) reaction times have disappeared. Normally at the beginning of a new year we know what’s coming and our electronic systems automatically readjust over the Christmas holidays. But now we have to be ready for anything.” Most Canadian companies,


facilities and industries that rely on the transportation of exported and/or imported manufactured goods to and


from the U.S. express similar sentiments of happiness and relief over the fact that Canada was not excluded, as many feared, from the new USMCA. The 34-chapter deal will


govern more than $1 trillion worth of trilateral


trade in


North America. It is intended to last 16 years, with reviews every six years. The deal notably gives


the U.S. greater access (3.5 percent) to Canada’s $16-billion dairy market while allowing Canada to ship more cars to the U.S. (up to 2.5 million from the current 2.2. million). Similarly, 40 percent of car parts of vehicles produced in the USMCA area must be made in areas of North


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