Canada has pivoted toward nimble sector-specific commercial arrangements lately, with critical mineral partnerships with the European Union, South Korea, and Japan.
ADRIAN WYLD/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Arthur Lam is a founding partner of Nexus Strategic Consultants. He was a former senior adviser in the federal trade and industry ministers’ offices.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s global tariff assault confirmed what some foreign affairs experts have predicted for the last decade: the era of free trade agreements is over.
Even before Mr. Trump violated international agreements, the warning signs were evident in the near-collapse of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the six-year impasse of the World Trade Organization’s appellate body and Canada’s paused China and India trade negotiations. Even our much-lauded agreement with the European Union ran into its own challenges, barely making it through the Netherlands’ parliament.
