00:01:15.800Well, no one's really quite sure because it doesn't exist yet, but we're hoping to find out.
00:01:20.960Hello and welcome to the Full Comment podcast.
00:01:22.680My name is Brian Lilly, your host, and this week we're going to try and delve into what this means in terms of the politics of it, but also the trade realities.
00:01:31.340We've got a couple of experts lined up to discuss those issues with us.
00:01:35.660But before we get to that, let's talk about the politics a little bit, because when you listened to Carney's speech, yes, he talked about the need to draw together financial regulations,
00:01:47.740have a single financial services market,
00:01:50.680the desire to open up trade and natural resources, and more.
00:01:55.180But there were also a lot of political cues throughout his speech.
00:03:19.680Our commitment to the rule of law and our unyielding defense of human dignity, individual freedom, and democracy share the same deep roots, the same unwavering dedication.
00:03:33.800We hold common values for which we have always fought and in whose defense we must always remain vigilant.
00:03:45.380We believe that a strong economy is not an end in itself, but a means to a just society.
00:03:54.340You can see the political thread throughout Carney's speech.
00:03:56.940And of course, that's against the backdrop of Donald Trump saying that he would impose tariffs on the EU and Canada if this was seen as a hostile act or coming from a bad place.
00:04:07.580We'll have to wait and see what Trump's reaction to all of this is long term.
00:04:12.180He's probably waiting for details just like the rest of us are.
00:04:15.920But what to make of the trade side of this?
00:04:18.740Well, Anand Menon is a professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King's College London and director of the UK and a Changing Europe initiative.
00:04:39.840So Mark Carney, using the term associate member of the European Union, the thing he had previously said wasn't actually going to happen. Anand, what do you say to Canadians who are looking at this and cheering it on and saying everything's going to be rosy, everything's going to be good?
00:04:57.120I firmly believe in expanded trade with the European Union, but I know there's obstacles in
00:05:03.140the way from regulations that would block us to regulations they would say, if you don't adopt
00:05:09.100these and do things our way, you can't trade. I mean, the first thing I'd say to Canadians is
00:05:14.480you clearly have a prime minister who's very good at politics, because in terms of politics and in
00:05:19.320terms of symbolism, the speech by Ursula von der Leyen yesterday and by Prime Minister Carney
00:05:24.020today were very, very effective. The salutary note I'd add on to that is associate membership
00:05:31.040doesn't actually mean anything. There is no such thing legally. It is a term that the
00:05:35.720commission president literally made up yesterday. And we'll have to wait and see over the months
00:05:42.460and years to come as negotiations start between the EU and Canada, what, if anything, it means
00:05:46.820on substance. But I'm a strange person. And so I like reading source documents and legally
00:05:53.720binding agreements and you can look to things like the agreement between the european economic
00:05:58.980area so norway iceland lichtenstein you can look at the agreement with switzerland
00:06:05.620you don't we've already got a free trade agreement with the eu you don't get deep trade access beyond
00:06:14.480say something like cita without agreeing that well the bureaucrats in brussels are going to
00:06:20.600make the decisions for you. That's been the experience of Britain. Britain has said no to
00:06:25.340allowing Brussels to resume its role in regulating British life. And so you don't have the deeper
00:06:31.300trading relationship that Britain has sought. Can Canada get one when Britain can't, when Norway,
00:06:38.720Iceland, Lichtenstein, Switzerland could not without ceding sovereignty? I mean, there are
00:06:44.480many, many layers to your question. The first I'd say is, once you get to the nitty gritty of
00:06:50.420trade negotiations all EU member states have to sign it off so all EU member states have to feel
00:06:56.120they're getting something and not being damaged by that deal and as we saw with CETA it's very
00:07:01.060very hard to get all EU member states to sign a trade deal with anyone so that's the first thing
00:07:06.480is there a practical difference the second thing is geography the biggest single determinant of a
00:07:11.920country's trade pattern is geography and whether you like it or not your biggest trading partner
00:07:17.220is the United States. And I suspect whether you like it or not, your biggest trading partner will
00:07:21.980always be the United States, just because if you look at a map, you can see why. In the same way
00:07:27.040that the United Kingdom's largest trading partner is the European Union, whether we're in the EU or
00:07:31.740not, because they're next door. That means several things, I think. Firstly, you'll never have massive
00:07:37.780volumes of trade with the European Union. They might go up slightly with the trade deal. They
00:07:41.200won't go up enormously. But secondly, given that, it probably isn't worth Canada's while
00:07:47.060thinking about regulatory alignment with the EU, because if you align in regulatory terms with the
00:07:53.160EU, then first, as you quite rightly say, you'll be a rule taker because the EU won't let you
00:07:56.880shape those rules. It'll impose them on you. But secondly, it might get in the way of trade with
00:08:02.240the United States if your standards suddenly start to diverge from US standards and move
00:08:06.540towards european ones so it makes sense for norway because norway's in europe okay and they've made
00:08:11.860the calculation we're perfectly happy accepting a load of eu rules in return for access to the
00:08:18.020market and it kind of works for norway because norway has a ridiculously simple economy and
00:08:22.160it's only real exports of fish oil and a few metals it's not a very complicated economy so
00:08:28.240being a rule taker with the eu doesn't matter canada is a whole different kettle of fish
00:08:31.940in what way i mean some would say we're just drawers of water and hewers of wood that's
00:08:38.780always the knock that canadians make on um on our own economy i i would disagree with that but how
00:08:45.200is canada are we much more uh diversified in terms of our economy more advanced well we're getting
00:08:52.380very close to the point where i'm going to say to you you need to get an expert on canada on your
00:08:55.840show rather than me but what i would say is you know canada is part of a load of complex supply
00:09:01.380chains with the united states for the auto industry uh and those things really really
00:09:06.460matter and actually one of the striking things and one of the reasons why i think president
00:09:10.240trump is going to struggle to make his rhetoric turn into reality is there are many many people
00:09:15.460in new york state in michigan in those u.s states where there is a load of cross-border trade with
00:09:20.980the canadians who are seriously worried about the prospect of deteriorating trading relations
00:09:25.820because they depend on that relationship as much as the Canadians do.
00:09:30.940You were speaking with my colleague at National Post, Tracy Morin,
00:09:34.700and you talked about the geography part of this.
00:09:39.680You mentioned that you won't be eating frozen Canadian fish anytime soon.
00:09:43.900Why? Do you have a problem with frozen Canadian fish?
00:09:46.800No, I think what I said was I don't see an immediate prospect of me eating fresh, non-frozen.
00:09:55.820canadian fish okay because the distance is so large and that's the difference isn't it is
00:10:00.900if you're next door the sheer density and sort of heterogeneity of your trade can be so much higher
00:10:07.700because for instance fresh food and drink can cross the border and actually in a way what
00:10:12.280britain is finding is that makes your life more difficult because the eu will insist on regulatory
00:10:16.560alignment with us if we want to deal with them on agriculture simply because we're so close simply
00:10:22.720because it is possible for a British cow to cross the border into the Republic of Ireland.
00:10:27.920They are all the more alive to the dangers of leakage into the single market and will0.69
00:11:01.120Once you factor in inflation, that's only gone up by about $12 billion in current dollar terms.
00:11:08.100Our imports from the EU went up from $52 billion to $91 billion.
00:11:13.660We're still importing far more than we're exporting.
00:11:16.960You look at our largest exports, oil and gas, and Prime Minister Carney has said, well, we'll build pipelines to export liquefied natural gas, which Europe desperately wants, which our former prime minister said there was no business case for.
00:11:34.640But our second biggest export after that are autos.
00:11:39.960I know Britain's not in the EU anymore,
00:11:42.160but we're not going to make left-handed cars,
00:16:17.760So despite all the pomp, the circumstance, the flourish, the rhetoric, is there actually
00:16:24.160support for what Mark Carney is saying among European leaders or are they just saying,
00:16:31.420yeah, we like this, but we don't want to anger Donald Trump.
00:16:35.220There's support for it as far as it goes, which is we share the same concerns about the United States.
00:16:40.640No one's going to be willing to stick their neck out and sacrifice their national interests, I don't think.0.97
00:16:45.200And it was very striking that even after Mark Carney made his speech about middle powers,
00:16:48.760the first thing he did was he didn't criticize Donald Trump over what happened in Venezuela,
00:16:52.840and he was quite supportive over Iran, which took quite a lot of people in Europe by surprise.
00:16:56.960So everyone, you know, this is a subtle game.
00:16:59.360You can't just say we're not dealing with the United States and everyone makes their own calculations. So in that sense, I think there are going to be limits to middle power solidarity. My hunch has always been that actually your geography is a more fundamental determinant of your geopolitical interests than your size. And there you see European states share fundamental geopolitical priorities in a way that they don't necessarily do so with the Canadians.
00:17:24.620yes. There's been talk of combining the EU, Canada, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And
00:17:35.300I find that difficult to take seriously, in part because of what you're talking about,
00:17:41.260geography. Is that a realistic idea, making this massive trading block of the TPP,
00:17:49.820the EU, Canada, as a counterweight to the United States, considering the vast distances
00:17:57.020between all these countries. Look, we've been doing global trade for hundreds and hundreds of
00:18:02.320years, but we always do more trade with people closer to us. I hate to keep coming back to the
00:18:07.280geography thing, but it is a major factor. But again, this isn't just about trade and
00:18:12.860economics. It's about geopolitics. It's about security. And you forgot a crucial element there,
00:18:17.340which is I think those sorts of groupings are not just about de-risking from the United States
00:18:22.240they're also about a shared concern about the rise of China and I think in that sense you can
00:18:27.440see a rationale for that kind of body and for those sorts of partnerships springing up because
00:18:32.340we share with Australia and New Zealand perhaps not as acutely as those countries because they're
00:18:37.000closer a fear of what a rising China might mean a concern that China might represent a threat to
00:18:43.200our interest. So, yes, I can see a lot of these kind of things springing up. But again, going back
00:18:47.380to your point, none of them are going to fundamentally alter the nature or the direction
00:18:52.000of global trade because geography is such a powerful factor. But they might lead to stronger
00:18:56.320security alliances. I mean, think about the United Kingdom. We signed trade deals with Australia,
00:19:01.000followed by the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United States. So, in that sense,
00:19:04.800trade was inextricably linked to geopolitical bargains as well.
00:19:08.000roberta uh metzula the president of the european union parliament uh different than the president
00:19:16.080of the european commission but president of the parliament she gave an interview where you just
00:19:22.020mentioned new zealand and australia she gave an interview where she said well if canada becomes
00:19:26.460an associate member we could soon look at new zealand and australia becoming associate members
00:19:31.120uh it is the eu just suddenly looking to be open for business i mean the eu is looking for partners
00:19:40.020the eu is looking to demonstrate to the world that it's still attractive to people outside of
00:19:44.720europe that it still has something to offer so in terms of pr those things sound very appealing but
00:19:49.600going back to where we started i still don't know what associate membership means i don't think
00:19:54.460roberto mitzola knows what associate membership means mark carney gave every indication of not
00:19:59.240being entirely sure what associate membership means. We'll have to wait and see, because if
00:20:04.180they're serious about this, it means treaty change in the European Union to admit or to
00:20:08.180have a new class of partnership. And there's no treaty change going to happen in the European
00:20:11.780Union anytime soon. We're going to have to see what deeds flesh out these words in the years to
00:20:16.780come, because it might be that I'm being overly cynical and they achieve a lot. But for the
00:20:20.540moment, all we have is a label without any substance to go with it. Well, I mean, you're
00:20:25.780right to be cynical the uh trade agreement with the mercosur countries took what close to 25 years
00:20:31.960to negotiate um that's that's moving pretty slowly i mean the european union is many things but it's
00:20:37.500never quick mark carney seems to want to move quickly yeah i think mark carney might end up
00:20:43.780getting quite frustrated though because you know the eu machinery moves slowly you need the board
00:20:48.460you need the buy-in of all 27 member states the eu has other priorities as well that it needs to
00:20:54.360focus on. We'll have to see. I mean, if there is the political urgency, particularly amongst the
00:21:00.700biggest member states, this might move quickly. We haven't yet had responses formally from some
00:21:05.180of the larger member states. What we hear on the grapevine is that many of those member states
00:21:09.040weren't briefed about this idea of associate membership. So some of them, I think, are probably
00:21:12.920desperately on the phones of Brussels trying to figure out what the hell that means.
00:21:15.80010 of the 27 countries have yet to fully ratify and implement cita um so you know a 10 year old
00:21:25.060free trade agreement with the european union and a third of the members have not signed on to it
00:21:31.640fully in part due to dairy which you know you could speak to your own government about the
00:21:36.940frustrations of dealing with canada and dairy and cheese it's why we don't have a free trade
00:21:42.540deal with britain so you know if we can't have a free trade deal with britain i'm finding it hard
00:21:47.760to figure out how we're going to get deeper integration with the eu but let me ask you about
00:21:51.900deeper integration with britain australia new zealand um you know daniel hannon has written
00:21:59.780about this many times and was sending me his piece again uh in the telegraph about it's time
00:22:04.440for kansuk is there any appetite for something like kansuk aligning canada new zealand australia
00:22:10.940in the UK? I mean, there's a certain strand of political opinion on the political right that's
00:22:16.420quite fond of the white Commonwealth and sees the English language as a great factor bonding0.74
00:22:22.280them together and thinks that they can work together. I think they run up to the difficulties0.91
00:22:26.200of geography straight away. I think a lot of the Brexiters like Daniel Hannan were at best very
00:22:31.460naive when they claimed that trade with the rest of the world would compensate for the impact of
00:22:35.780leaving the European Union. It hasn't, and it almost certainly won't. Having alliances with
00:22:41.360those countries makes perfect sense, again, because we have some shared interests in common.0.79
00:22:45.560Not the same level that Europeans have shared interests in common, because Europeans share
00:22:50.100a geography, and therefore share an exposure to Russia, to instability in the Middle East,
00:22:55.040that the Canadians, the New Zealanders, the Australians simply don't share.
00:22:57.760no we are far removed from that uh any advice um as someone who uh you know is from a country that
00:23:07.420was part of the eu has gone through the exit package and has watched the frustrations of
00:23:13.840trying to sign a new deal with europe any advice for canadians as we embark on this uh unknown path
00:23:20.180i think what i would say is if canadians have reached the point where they need advice from
00:23:25.240made and things are worse than they thought. All right, Anand, thank you very much for your time.
00:23:32.500My pleasure. All right, when we come back, we're going to connect with Carlo Dade. He is at the
00:23:37.040University of Calgary School of Public Policy, a trade expert in his own right. He fully understands
00:23:43.000what it means for Canada-EU trade going forward, but also what the impact on Canada-U.S. trade
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00:26:50.860Canada and Europe can join forces to develop AI safety protocols,
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00:26:59.740All well-developing applications so that our governments and our companies can serve our citizens better.
00:27:05.920prime minister mark carney during his speech to the european parliament talking about common
00:27:13.180standards that has been one of my biggest questions since this idea of becoming an
00:27:18.600associate member of the european union or perhaps just having a unique alliance or an alliance for
00:27:24.580the future call it what you will the eu does not give out easy access to their trading markets
00:27:30.780without the countries that want that access adopting EU standards?
00:27:35.840Are we going to be rule makers or rule takers?
00:27:39.080Joining me now to talk more about this is Carlo Dade.
00:30:25.300It's French territory, but it is in North America.
00:30:29.240But, I mean, are we thinking that creatively?
00:30:32.140Are we thinking that far outside the box that we're into triangles, pentagons, and whatever, octagons, that we're so far out of the box?
00:30:43.060Those are the issues in the short term.
00:30:45.460But point up front, there is a short-term tactical play to what the prime minister is doing.
00:30:53.660There's potentially a larger, longer-term strategic play.
00:30:58.940The two are not completely different, but we haven't had the conversation or thinking about the longer-term strategic play.
00:31:08.080I think there's potential brilliance in that, but the short one is where the danger lies.
00:31:14.700So what's the short-term play and what's the long-term play?
00:31:18.220The short-term play is a tactical response to the U.S., an attempt to, A, signal the
00:31:23.760Americans in the current negotiations that we are serious about diversification, as opposed
00:31:29.400to 1971 under Nixon, where we made a lot of noise and there was no smoke, let alone
00:31:35.580fire, really, in our diversification efforts.
00:31:38.70071 was when Nixon imposed the surprise 10% surcharge, took the U.S. off the gold standard, threw us, Europe, Japan into a tailspin.
00:31:50.360They single unilaterally rewrote trade rules.
00:31:54.200That shock in 71 convinced us we had to diversify.
00:31:58.980You can see the results of 50 years of those attempts.
00:32:02.420I think this is a signal that, no, this time we're serious.
00:32:05.760We're talking about increasing relations with the EU, with the trade bloc, to integrate, to really jumpstart that addition to the U.S., giving us a firm foot, not a rhetorical foot, but a firm foot in another path.
00:32:24.760There's also a desperate attempt to trade with a market that's not complementary to us, that's proved exceedingly difficult.
00:32:32.560So if you talk to farmers out here on the West and you say which market's more difficult, China or Europe, you're going to get a pause while the Greek gears grind and they work through and they think through it.
00:32:45.720If you're trying to sell durum wheat, you're probably having an easier time selling wheat to China than you are to Italy.
00:32:50.960So the short-term issues are complicated, but the longer-term issue, the, I think, strategic brilliance in a bad idea is something I wrote 14 years ago in the Globe and Mail.
00:33:10.380It was an article about using Latin America to engage Asia.
00:33:16.680The idea was, at the time, you had the rise of the Pacific Alliance trade bloc.
00:33:22.660Four Latin American nations along the Pacific Rim that were banding together unified rules, policy reforms,
00:33:30.800they were going to get serious about catching up with Asia and integrating with Asia.
00:33:35.880For Canada, 14 years ago, that was struggling to enhance its ties with Asia, this offered an opportunity to link our Latin American ties with this budding movement to create a new way to integrate with Asia.
00:33:52.380Fast forward to Prime Minister Carney in Davos.
00:33:56.060He's desperately seeking a third path between China and the United States.
00:34:02.840two hostile entities to Canadian trade interests that are attempting to rewrite global trade rules.
00:34:10.000The brilliance of this idea potentially is that Canada serves as a bridge between the EU and the CPTPP
00:34:18.440and countries in Asia that are also seeking a third path.
00:34:22.840Your trade numbers suddenly get turned on their head.
00:34:25.400The size of the bloc goes from being smaller than the U.S. share of global trade or China's share of global trade to being, I think, twice as large as the American share and three times as large as China's share.
00:34:40.820This is a massive, incredible undertaking. But if we can serve as a bridge between Asian efficiency and European equity, European rules and Asian sort of directness in terms of economic growth, etc., we could really create something interesting.
00:35:02.300Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe started this idea when he rescued the TPP in the first Trump administration.
00:35:10.280There's a chance, a very difficult, very hard, very costly chance for, I think, Canada to take leadership.
00:35:20.740Are you talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership when you talk about this third wave?
00:35:24.780Because, look, we signed on to that under Prime Minister Harper.
00:35:28.340It's been in effect since the early Trudeau days, much like CETA.
00:36:37.680We're at about 31 billion U.S. of exports.
00:36:42.66066 billion U.S. that we import from them, but 31 billion of exports.
00:36:46.600we export 403 billion to the u.s and in that 31 billion is after a big increase over the last
00:36:56.080decade we're not replacing the americans are we no and the goal is not to replace the americans
00:37:03.060it's the u.s based on some of the rhetoric yeah the rhetoric i think especially as it
00:37:09.900flows into the media as it flows into public discourse as it flows into channels of communication
00:37:17.980where you have five seconds three minutes uh seven if you're lucky on a radio hit or a tv hit
00:37:26.820uh to try and work through the nuances um you know chase producers uh editors of papers they need
00:37:34.900Not nuance. They need the point. And that broader point, the nuance is critical here. We are not going to outgrow or leave the U.S. market. The growth of our diversification strategy is to have the rate of increase in trade with the U.S. exceeded by the rate of growth of increase of trade with other countries.
00:38:03.560It's still the richest, easiest, fattest market around.
00:38:07.680Businesses are not going to choose to leave.
00:38:10.600The goal of diversification of the markets is to make other markets easier.
00:38:15.480You do not do that by signing individual bilateral agreements with a different set of rules for Honduras,
00:38:23.220a different set of rules for Korea and a different set of rules for the EU. You need
00:38:31.620large agreements. What makes the U.S. work is not just geographic proximity. It's one set of rules
00:38:38.320for the U.S. and Mexico, which makes the cost of compliance and working out supply chains worthwhile.
00:38:45.940So I think if we get to a point where we have a large enough market with one set of rules and you have the ability to buy, sell, make things together with a larger market, you create an economic and trade gravity to increase the likelihood of businesses taking part.
00:39:07.220It's an agreement that doesn't open up the EU or the CPPP for you. It opens up, what are we talking, 40, 50 countries with one set of rules, one set of rules of origin, one set of rules for phytosanitary potentially. It lowers the cost and creates an alternative to balance the U.S.
00:39:31.320The other reason for the past underperformance, some would say, is on the one hand, you had the U.S. that was slightly difficult, but a hell of a lot less difficult than Honduras.
00:39:45.180I mean, we signed a trade agreement with Honduras.
00:39:47.880How many companies, Canadian companies, that weren't selling potatoes were going to abandon Houston to run down to Honduras?
00:39:59.100But the rise of what the Trump administration is doing
00:40:05.380People are seeing our take on the generational change in the U.S.
00:40:10.080The chaos, the turmoil will not end until the ability of the president
00:40:16.620The powers that the president has to disrupt trade are constrained by Congress
00:40:22.600No one but no one thinks that's about to happen
00:40:25.420not with the dsa getting ready to come in in dc we're looking at getting 10 dsa congress people
00:40:32.140it's not going to get better on the trade front it's going to get worse they they actually just
00:40:37.280want to rip up the whole agreement they they don't want to make things better they don't want to get
00:40:42.900rid of tariffs they want out it's it's nuanced on their end but your point is correct it's not
00:40:49.660good news coming down the pike. So if folks are finally understanding that Nixon took four months
00:40:56.960to rewrite global trade, to get the Japanese, the Europeans, and Canada to the table to reset the
00:41:04.320rules, Trump is dragging this out. Nixon did it with brutal efficiency. Trump is doing it with
00:41:11.420gratuitous chaos and economic violence. These are so different in degree that it's a difference in
00:41:18.020kind. I think that that difference and companies beginning to realize that this, I can't wait till
00:41:26.080the midterms. I can't wait till the next administration, which may be worse. I can't
00:41:30.680wait for the administration after that. I think these qualitative changes on the part of business,
00:41:38.140realizing that this isn't a one-off, I can't hunker down and hide, but we need longer-term
00:41:43.360solutions may convince companies to start thinking about longer-term sunk cost investments
00:41:51.140to enable trade. The other issue we have is we built our entire trade infrastructure,
00:41:58.520you know, Port of Vancouver a little bit, St. Lawrence Seaway a little bit, but really our
00:42:02.940infrastructure is built to move goods to the U.S. Where do we have two-lane roads that get blocked
00:42:09.320when Buddy moves the tractor on the road? It's across Canada. Where do we have four-lane highways
00:42:15.120with no tractors on the road? That's down to the US. Where do we have roads that get shut down in
00:42:22.000the winter? It's moving stuff across the country. Where do we have roads that never shut down in
00:42:27.320the winter? It's to the US. So correcting that problem is going to be a massive infrastructure0.84
00:42:34.520investment, and that's a huge sunk cost. You're not going to make it unless you're looking at
00:42:39.240generational change in the U.S. and a market that's big enough to convince Canadian companies
00:42:46.760and governments to make these infrastructure investments. So you're talking about turning
00:42:51.960the QE2 here, and you're not going to turn the QE2 unless you're sure that you absolutely have to.
00:42:58.480I'm glad that you're put in in terms of generational change because I don't see it
00:43:03.540going back to normal no matter who wins the next election, never mind the midterms. And
00:43:08.300I can't believe how many smart people I know still believe that if the Democrats win in the midterms, everything will change. They have not read the text of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. And it might be boring, but sometimes that's what you have to do to know what you're dealing with.
00:43:26.220And there's nothing, barring a supermajority in Congress for the Democrats without the DSA, there's no chance of them repealing that legislation, which gives the president, whoever it is, unfettered powers to bring in tariffs under national security reasons.
00:43:45.980If you haven't read the Green New Deal, if you haven't read the Red Deal, this is work that we're doing.
00:43:52.060Just as we talked to MAGA before and looked at it before Trump came in and we were working on it, we're now turning our attention to the to the to the DSA.
00:44:05.540Interesting. We will have to have you back on about that.
00:44:08.000Let me ask you about the you talked about this bigger market with one set of rules on things like rules of origin.
00:44:18.160It's incredibly difficult to do that with just the United States.
00:44:22.060Is it feasible to be able to trade and continue to have a free trade agreement, such as it is with the United States, and have this very complex deal that works at scale with all of these other countries, the EU or the TPP?
00:44:40.040I don't know that we have a choice. It's a rock in the hard place. Forgive me for my faulty memory of Greek mythology, but everyone who saw Odysseus, the whirlpool, and the monsters in the rock, Cyrus, and anyway, but it's the literal rock in the hard place.
00:45:00.860We really don't have a choice. There are no easy alternatives. There is no easy path out of this.
00:45:07.300This is not a TV sitcom where we wrap things up before the last commercial. This is going to
00:45:13.780require some tasks that seem almost impossible. The scope and scale of what we have to do in
00:45:19.780terms of infrastructure in this country, the scope and scale of what it would take to do this type
00:45:25.540of negotiation is, I don't know that we can do it, but I also don't know that we have any choice
00:45:32.780but to try. The EU took 25 years to negotiate a free trade deal with Mercosur. Now, we already
00:45:40.540have a free trade deal with the EU. Mark Carney seems like someone who is definitely in a hurry.
00:45:46.920He wants to move fast. Do you think that he can move fast in dealing with a 27-country
00:45:53.860bureaucracy that isn't known for its speed or agility.
00:46:00.600Have conditions changed enough for practice to change? Have conditions changed enough?
00:46:08.860Are countries worried enough about what we're seeing with the U.S. and China to finally have
00:46:15.860their come-to-Jesus moment about the past riding the future. If that's the case, then the situation
00:46:25.160is as bad and dire as we think. If it's not the case that we can't do this, that the Europeans1.00
00:46:30.900can't change, that we can't change, that we can't start building infrastructure in this country,
00:46:36.200then we've misread the extent of the current crisis. All right, Carlo Day, thanks again for