FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

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Canada’s Trudeau Refuses To Scrap ‘Dispute Resolution Mechanism’ in Renegotiated NAFTA

Sept. 5, 2018 (EIRNS)—After her second round of talks in Washington today with the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on updating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the talks continue to be “constructive.” “We continue to work hard. The atmosphere continues to be constructive and positive. There is good faith and good will on both sides,” she said, according to Reuters.

However, on Sept. 4, talking to the reporters in Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted that Canada will not sign a renegotiated NAFTA that eliminates the dispute resolution mechanism, which Trump insists on scrapping. The mechanism allows a team of lawyers to decide if a nation’s sovereign laws can be suspended to conform to the trade agreement.

Trudeau also insisted that the agreement must protect Canada’s “cultural sectors”—including the news media—reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), a federal Crown corporation. Referring to the existing NAFTA’s cultural exemption clause, which means cultural goods are not treated like other commercial products, Trudeau said

“it is inconceivable to Canadians that an American network might buy Canadian media affiliates, whether it’s newspapers or TV stations or TV networks. It would be a giving up of our sovereignty and our identity and that is something that we will simply not accept,”

CBC quoted him saying.