![\"Photo:](\"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/files\/2017\/08\/canadasoftwoodCC.jpg\")
<\/a>The softwood lumber trade has been one point of dispute between the U.S. and Canada in NAFTA. Photo: Prov. of British Columbia<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n I was nine years old in 1988 during the so-called \u201cfree trade election\u201d in Canada. The Canada-U.S. free trade agreement had been reached and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney decided to put his political future on the line by making the deal the main issue in that year\u2019s election campaign. My family lived near Oshawa, Ontario at the time, home to most of General Motors\u2019 Canadian production facilities. A lot of kids at school had parents who were auto workers. I remember them shouting, \u201cfree trade sucks!\u201d on the playground. Mulroney won the election and the free trade deal was ratified. Five years later, Prime Minister Jean Chretien signed us into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that added Mexico to the mix.<\/p>\n President Trump wants to renegotiate NAFTA and the Trudeau government Canada has agreed to take part. Prime Minister Trudeau has begun assembling a NAFTA negotiating team that will begin talks with U.S. counterparts in a couple of weeks. Partisanship has been set aside, Liberal Trudeau has appointed two former Conservative cabinet ministers to the team.<\/p>\n There have always been unsettling aspects of the deal, especially involving softwood lumber and supply-management in the Canadian dairy industry. Manufacturers have also left Canada for the southern U.S., and they have left both countries for Mexico. Even so, to tear up the deal and completely get rid of it would probably have more negative consequences than benefits. The acrimonious Brexit situation, where Britain is trying to end its 45-year marriage to the European Union, might serve as an example.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\nThe North American Free Trade Agreement<\/h3>\n