Get ready—a revised North American free trade arrangement is coming It seems clear that between late November when Donald Trump first raised the prospects of tariffs on Canada and last weekend when he officially announced them, the Trudeau government wrongly put all of its eggs in the basket that it could persuade him to change his mind. Now that we’ve gotten a 30-day reprieve, we cannot afford to waste this time too. Although the temporary agreement is ostensibly focused on fentanyl, Trump’s social media post emphasized that the delay was meant to see “whether or not a final economic deal with Canada can be structured.” This suggests that all of this turmoil will eventually culminate in the renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) under the threat of impending tariffs, withdrawal from the agreement, or some combination of the two. Canadian policymakers need to be ready. They should be devising a renegotiation strategy over the next 30 days that accepts that any negotiation is going to be suboptimal. It will be conducted under a state of duress and the lesson of the past weeks is that there’s no guarantee that Trump will ultimately honour an agreement. Yet it’s still in the country’s interests to try to maintain a free trade agreement with the U.S. We must therefore have a clear understanding of our own priorities in advance of the USMCA’s renegotiations. The administration’s lack of clarity on what it precisely wants can actually be an advantage. We have a chance to shape the negotiations and fill-in-the-blanks of America’s policy goals by exercising first-mover advantage—by setting out a new vision for a North American economic and security partnership. Such a proposal must be cognizant of the administration’s understanding of the end of unipolarity and the requisite adjustments to America’s economic and foreign policy. Trump’s top advisors firmly believe that the U.S. can no longer accept the asymmetric economic and security arrangements with its allies that have marked the past several decades. Those in its orbit (or bloc) will face greater expectations than ever before. We’ll need to bring more to the relationship. This requires Canadian policymakers to reach beyond the typical playbook. Radical ideas like economic union or a common carbon border adjustment policy should be considered. The same goes for a bilateral arrangement on drug development costs and consumer prices. Or even shared border patrols and Arctic defence bases. One big idea that can be a win-win is for Canada to meet its 2-percent NATO target in part by investing public dollars into building mineral processing facilities in different parts of the country. The argument would be that Canada’s best contribution to continental defence and security isn’t troops or ships or planes. It’s becoming an alternative and reliable source of critical minerals in North America. These ideas (and other unconventional ones like them) will no doubt be controversial—particularly in the moment of heightened Canadian nationalism—but Canada’s interests are ultimately best served by maintaining our market access to the U.S. and even deepening the economic integration between the two countries. The impending USMCA renegotiations, which may be upon us sooner rather than later, must therefore be understood by Canadian policymakers as a crucial moment for the country. Trump’s allusion to a “final economic deal” is a sign that the end game of the chaos and noise of the past several weeks is a revised free trade arrangement in North America. If this is right, Canadian policymakers should be preparing for this eventuality now. That means every idea must be on the table.

WELKER: Is Trump serious about planning to annex Canada? MIKE WALTZ: Look, I think the Canadian people, many of them, would love to join the United States