Category Archives: Canada-US trade

How Should Canada Respond to Biden’s Buy American Policies?

Here is my commentary – published by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, 25 February 2021 – on the various aspects of President Biden’s new Buy American policies and their implications for Canadian suppliers. https://bit.ly/2PdQpJl

Keystone XL Is Dead – It’s Now a Question of Compensation

This is a column of mine in the Globe and Mail (Toronto), 25 January 2021, about the Keystone XL permit cancellation, commenting on how calls for Canadian “sanctions” or “retaliation” made by the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan make no sense. As well, neither the WTO Agreement nor CUSMA provide legal justification for this kind… Read More »

Seven Trade Moves to Watch For Under Joe Biden

This is a Globe and Mail (Toronto) column, 12 November 2020, reviewing some of the key trade policy issues likely to percolate to the surface as between Canada and the US under Joe Biden’s presidency. Canada-US Trade Under President Biden

Buy American Challenges

This is a short piece issued by the C. D. Howe Institute, Toronto, regarding the Buy American policies of president-elect Biden and the potential challenges these kind of preference have for Canadian suppliers to the American procurement market. C D Howe Inst Memo – Joe Biden’s Buy American Agenda

Investment Disputes in a Post-Pandemic World

This article is a summary of the state of investment disputes under the so-called Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) systems in various treaties to which Canada is party. It looks at current win-loss record for Canada and deals with the phase out of NAFTA investment disputes under the new Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement or CUSMA. While these… Read More »

CUSMA – One Last Hurdle Remains

This was a commentary published in the Report on Business (Globe and Mail) on 8 April 2020. In the piece, I wonder why the Trump administration hasn’t provided the official notice needed to get the CUSMA into effect. I suspect much of it is related to the auto rules of orgin, something Mexico has also… Read More »

COVID-19 Crisis & Trump’s Export Controls

COVID-19 Crisis-Export Controls Not the Answer

Submission to House of Commons Trade Committee

This is a copy of my submission to the Canadian House of Commons Trade Committee in advance of my testimony on February 20. 2020. I say that the task before the Committee in to bring Canadian laws into line with CUSMA. It is an implementing bill, not a treaty re-negotiating exercise. If the Bill and… Read More »

Investment Disputes under NAFTA-An Evaluation

This commentary, published by the C. D. Howe Institute, deals with investor claims under NAFTA Chapter 11 and assesses Canada’s win-loss record over the past 25 years. These arbitrations are coming to an end under the new NAFTA – or CUSMA as it’s called in Canada. I say that’s a welcome development. NAFTA Investment Disputes-Bringing… Read More »

Canada-US Investment Disputes Coming to End

Here is a commentary in the Globe and Mail, 4 March 2019, on the latest investment dispute panel decision in the Clayton-Bilcon case and the fact that these arbitrations are ending under the new NAFTA – the USMCA or CUSMA as Canada calls it. Overall, Canada has been targeted many more times than Mexico by… Read More »