Trade Talk: The Video Record

Trade Talk: The Video Record

Trade Talk: The Video Record

UPDATED July 26, 2017 1:15pmET

Here’s what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had to say about reports that Canada would walk away from NAFTA re-negotiation if the dispute settlement procedure was at risk (July 25):

Canada-U.S. free trade talks nearly collapsed in October 1987 over the dispute settlement issue. Here’s how former prime minister Brian Mulroney remembered those tense days, in a 2013 CPAC interview:

More recently, Canadian ambassador David MacNaughton used a July 20 event with the Washington International Trade Association to outline his hope that the NAFTA talks match the “better is always possible” slogan used by Trudeau and the Liberals in 2015.

Trudeau lobbied U.S. state governors on the benefits of NAFTA in a July 14 speech:

Trudeau has been asked about Canada’s negotiation plan several times in recent months. From question period in mid-June:

One month earlier, the response to the official U.S. notice to Congress to renegotiate:


Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump talked the following week in Italy at the G7 summit:

In April, Trump said the was prepared to move forward on extracting the U.S. from NAFTA, but agreed to negotiation after talking to both Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto:

From C-SPAN:

This followed Trump’s comments on a cross-border dispute over diafiltered milk products: “<i>Canada, what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers, it’s a disgrace. Farmers in Wisconsin and New York state are being put out of business</i>.

Trudeau pledged to defend the supply management system in any NAFTA renegotiation:

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who led the governments that negotiated NAFTA and free trade with the U.S., spoke earlier that month about what Canada could face:

Trudeau’s February visit to Washington left Trump saying this about free trade:

And here’s the prime minister’s initial reaction to Trump’s 2016 victory:

Of course, free trade isn’t a new issue in Canada-U.S. relations:

John Turner, Brian Mulroney, and Broadbent remember free trade and the 1988 campaign:

Annotated Hansard: Read excerpts from the House of Commons with CPAC “footnotes”:

Mulroney and Turner: final Question Period before election (September 21, 1988)

First Speech from the Throne (December 12, 1988)

Free Trade passes the House of Commons (December 23, 1988)

Second Speech from the Throne (April 3, 1989)

Infographic: 1988 and the fight for free trade

 

Former U.S. president George H.W. Bush recalled the NAFTA negotiations in Montreal in June 1999:

Bush, Mulroney, and former Mexican president Carlos Salinas marked the agreement’s 10th anniversary in 2002:

Here’s additional video, courtesy of the C-SPAN Video Archive:

Mulroney and Bush hold a joint news conference in Washington: May 20, 1992

Mulroney speaks to reporters: Aug. 12, 1992

NAFTA signing ceremony in San Antonio, Texas: Oct. 7, 1992

Mulroney speaks in Ottawa: Dec. 17, 1992

MPs, including Mulroney and other party leaders, debate NAFTA in the House of Commons: May 20, 1993

Brian Mulroney speaks about NAFTA to an American audience: Nov. 18, 1993

-Andrew Thomson

Trade