This piece originally appeared in The Globe and Mail on 9 May 2017
JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Gentlemen, thank you for coming today. It looks like President Trump may be gunning for NAFTA, and I’d like your advice. You all have experience negotiating trade deals with Americans.
SIR WILFRID LAURIER: Please don’t remind me.
TRUDEAU: The thing I’d like to know is, how does Canada get what it wants when the United States is so much bigger, and when we are so much more dependent on trading with them than they are with us?
LAURIER: My problem wasn’t the Americans. They came to us. We got everything we wanted in 1911—freer access to the U.S. market for Western farmers and raw materials producers, protection for Central Canadian manufacturers, you name it. It was a windfall. The Canadian voters said no.
WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE KING: I lost my bloody seat.
LAURIER: [Sir Robert] Borden was very clever. He changed the channel. Went on and on about how the deal threatened our independence, our way of life, the British connection—
KING: I lost my bloody seat.
TRUDEAU: But I can’t expect a good deal just to fall on my lap here. Clearly, we’re going to be playing defence.
BRIAN MULRONEY: That’s what we were doing in 1988. If we didn’t get a deal with some built-in protections against arbitrary trade action, we were facing death by a thousand cuts. Why, right in the middle of talks, the Americans slapped a 35 percent tariff on cedar shakes and shingles!
TRUDEAU (TAKING NOTES): Softwood, right?
MULRONEY: We almost walked away, you know. Actually, that helped. The Americans said, “Okay, okay, come back! We’ll deal.” [U.S. President] Ronnie [Ronald Reagan] had staked his credibility on a deal.
TRUDEAU: So, let me get this straight. The Americans offer us a great deal in 1911, and we say no. We go to them cap in hand in 1988 and come away with almost everything we wanted.
MULRONEY: It wasn’t easy. We had to play hardball. Culture was off the table. So was beer. Dairy. Actually, beer is culture.
TRUDEAU: And the Americans went for that?
MULRONEY: Well, you have to remember, we had certain advantages. The stakes were higher for us and we wanted it more, so we put more thought into it. We had a huge team. Talented, too. They fielded their B team. We did our legwork with Congress, the state governors, and the multinationals. There are enough competing interests in America that you can play them off against each other.
LESTER PEARSON: That’s exactly how we got the Auto Pact in ’65. [U.S. President Lyndon] Johnson was furious later, too. Complained that we outsmarted him.
LAURIER: I believe the phrase he used was, “You screwed us on the Auto Pact.” I’m not quite sure what that means…
KING: We played hardball in 1948, also. If we hadn’t imposed import restrictions, I don’t think we would have gotten a free trade deal then.
TRUDEAU: You got a free trade deal with the Americans? In 1948?
KING: Yes, but don’t tell anybody. I didn’t.
TRUDEAU: What happened?
KING: We were hemorrhaging foreign reserves. Down from $1.7 billion in May ’46 to $480 million in November ’47. But then the Americans let Europe spend Marshall Plan money in Canada, the crisis eased, and I decided I was too old and too tired to try to sell free trade to the voters. It would have been 1911 all over again; “Selling out to the Yankees,” and all that. (I lost my bloody seat.)
LAURIER: Well, everything was just fine in 1911. The economy was in wonderful shape. It was a missed opportunity.
TRUDEAU: So, let me see if I have this right: We didn’t close a deal we had in 1911 when things were fine but could have been even better; we had a deal in 1948 when we were facing disaster, but reneged when the disaster didn’t happen; and we got great deals in 1965 and 1988 when we were facing disaster even though we were in tough with the Americans, because we outsmarted them?
KING: That’s right, yes. Remember, people don’t like change: they won’t take risks when times are good, but they’ll take risks to avoid a loss. To get what you want, you have to convince people that they will lose otherwise.
MULRONEY: The convincing is key. Frame the narrative. Work the U.S. system. And assemble a team like mine.
PEARSON: It helps to let the president think he has won, too. I should have remembered that.
TRUDEAU: Thank you, gentlemen. This has been most enlightening.