By courting Beijing on electric vehicles and canola, he was testing the structural limits of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). If Washington dislikes the resulting deal, it has the unilateral right to terminate CUSMA and replace it with a bilateral U.S.-Mexico agreement. It strains credulity that the prime minister pursued a China reset without consulting trade officials who know the terms of CUSMA. Either way, the result is the same: Canada now faces the most serious trade threat in a generation, and we provoked it ourselves. Advertisement AdvertisementAdvertisement AdvertisementNational PostBarry Appleton is an international trade lawyer at Appleton & Associates International Lawyers LP, distinguished senior fellow and co-director at the Center for International Law at New York Law School and a scholar and fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

Source: National Post January 26, 2026 21:30 UTC