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The Niagara Independent, October 5, 2018<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Tuesday morning the CBC ran a headline story: \u201c‘Yay!’: How the Canadians won the argument that opened the door to a NAFTA deal\u201d<\/em> reporting a confident Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying, \u201cThere was [on Saturday] a sense things were falling into place.\u201d In most news reports this week Canadians have been reassured that PM Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (dubbed \u201cthe warrior princess\u201d) were victorious in wrestling U.S. President Donald Trump to concede to Canadian terms on an improved NAFTA deal.<\/p>\n That is the Canadian story. But, how is this 11th<\/sup> hour deal being received south of the border? (Warning: Americans have a remarkably different take.)<\/p>\n The Washington Post<\/em> called President Trump one of the big winners with the agreement: \u201cUSMCA does make substantial changes to modernize trade rules in effect from 1994 to 2020, and it gives some wins to U.S. farmers and blue-collar workers in the auto sector. Trump beat his doubters, and his team can now turn to the No. 1 trade target: China.\u201d<\/p>\n Bloomberg News<\/em> assessed the deal will be seen as a trade win for the president in the run-up to November\u2019s midterm elections. The NY Post Editorial<\/em> furthered this praise:\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll admit that the president\u2019s approach left us nervous, but it\u2019s hard to argue with the result: Trump has once again delivered on a campaign promise that his rivals called a fantasy. A politician who does what he says he\u2019ll do: Imagine that.\u201d<\/p>\n The most pointed accolade was on the front page headline of Monday\u2019s NY Post<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cTrump wins revised NAFTA with Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. lead trade negotiator, gave full credit for the success of the deal to the President: \u201cYour leadership, vision and grit made this agreement possible. No other person could have done it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n The President, in his hyperbolic style, called the deal \u201cthe single greatest achievement of all time\u201d as he claimed victory for the American worker with a deal that will \u201cpour cash and jobs\u201d into the U.S.<\/p>\n Political and economic analysts immediately recognized in the USMCA text that Americans got major concessions, the biggest being improved access to Canada\u2019s dairy market. The Wall Street Journal<\/em> observed the deal provides US dairy farmers access to about 3.5 percent of Canada\u2019s $16\u2009billion dairy market. \u201cIt gradually opens the Canadian market to more exported American dairy products, including fluid milk, cream, butter, skim milk powder, cheese and other dairy products.\u201d<\/p>\n There are significant incentives for more American auto production as cars imported from Canada and Mexico will now need 75 percent American content (up from the current 62.5 percent). This will force automakers to source fewer car parts from Germany, Japan, South Korea or China. Mr. Lighthizer stated these changes will result in bringing more car production back to the United States.<\/p>\n U.S. got significant provisions to extend to 10 years the intellectual property protections of American pharmaceutical companies selling prescription drugs in Canada. The result is Canadians will pay more for biologic drugs. A new IP provision also impacts Canadian copyright law, which will now need to protect creative works to 70 years after the artist\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Behind these headline issues, Americans received these concessions from Canada.<\/p>\n What is as remarkable as these details made public in American news sources on Monday is the fact that, on Tuesday trade news had been buried to the back financial pages, and on Wednesday \u201cthe single greatest achievement of all time\u201d was nowhere to be found in American media.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n