U of L professor outlines impact of USMCA agreement on Canada

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The second reason he noted, centres around interactions between signatories and other “non-market” countries – and one in particular – which could create road blocks to arranging free trade deals with other nations.

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“There’s two sections near the end of the agreement that were unexpected, it was section 32 and 33 dealing with the trade with non-market countries and also transparency on currency issues,” said Kukucha. “I think [they] are really more directed towards creating the illusion anyways of a regional block, so they can deal with trade and financial issues with China.

“Really, other than some changes to some of the rules-based language – some of which is very favourable to Canada – there’s not a lot in there that’s really a significant transformation,” he concluded.

As for the third, Kukucha says the American approach to the process could be looked at as a warning to other countries.

“One thing the U.S. was very successful at with this negotiation was framing the agenda and really putting Canada on its heels from the get-go. A lot of people are critical of Canadian negotiators – I think they did an outstanding job, not losing more than what they could have lost. Part of that’s our tradition as Canadian negotiators, too – we’re very difficult to deal with at times.”

When asked about the impact on the dairy industry – a significant concern for some Canadians during negotiations – Kukucha says what our country agreed to is quite similar to other agreements we already had in place with some European and Asian markets.

“There is going to be more competition in the dairy sector and there’s also caps on what we can ship out of the country… so yeah, we’re going to have to cut some dairy production in this country and we’re going to have to deal with more competition, but it’s very consistent with what we’ve already done in other agreements,” Kukucha explained.

“The argument from the dairy industry is death by a thousand cuts. I think there’s some validity to that comment, but it’s not as transformational, I think, as what they’re making it out to be,” he concluded.