bout de papier, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2000-2001) — Winter 2000/2001 // Hiver 2000/2001, p. 41
BUILDING A PARTNERSHIP: THE
CANADA — UNITED STATES FREE
TRADE AGREEMENT edited by
Mordechai Kreinin, Michigan State
University Press and University of Calgary
Press, p. xix, p. 194, $24.95
A written summation of an exceptional retrospective on the negotiation of the Canada — US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is finally in print, based on a Michigan State University conference in September, 1998, to mark the 10th anniversary of the conclusion of the FTA negotiations.
The centrepiece of the book is a marvellously moderated panel which reunited many of the original negotiators — Simon Reisman, Michael Wilson, Derek Burney, Konrad von Finckenstein, Michael Hart for Canada and Clayton Yeutter, Bill Merkin, Peter McPherson, Alan Holmer, Jean Anderson and “Chip” Roh from the United States. These key negotiators were artfully taken through the FTA process again — from conception to conclusion — by Roger Porter of Harvard. What a session. Together again 10 years later, they seemed to welcome the opportunity to open up and relive old times. As Jeffrey Simpson of The Globe and Mail put it, “… as they reminisced about the negotiations, some of the old tensions emerged.” Here is Simon Reisman still taking jabs at his American colleagues at the outset of the reprise: “I ultimately had a staff of 110 people of which there may have been 40 professionals. The best in the land… On the US side they didn’t know what they were up against. Their team consisted of only a dozen people. They did not take this very seriously, the way we did.” To quote Simpson again, Simon Reisman “hectored, lectured and interrupted the Americans at the conference, just as he did during the negotiations”
The reunion of the negotiators provides tantalizing insights that should be of profound interest to people studying trade policy, Canada — US relations and the process of negotiation itself. Of special interest too are the thoughtful and revealing opening addresses by former Treasury Secretary James Baker III and by Derek Burney. Baker is frank: “This agreement very nearly didn’t happen.” Mike Smith, former Senior Deputy United States Trade Representative, also contributes his account of how Derek Burney made the first overtures about the FTA, on a windy day in the Chesapeake Bay.
Other worthwhile contributions are a condensation of former US Ambassador Jim Blanchard’s assessment of Canadian — American differences (in which he praises Canada but cites us as world champion nit-pickers and uncharacteristic purveyors of violence – on ice.) along with scholarly pieces by Paul Wonnacott, Sylvia Ostry, Bill Dymond, Geza Feketekuty, Gary Hufbauer, David Schweikhardt and Mustafa Mohatarem.
The catalyst for the event was Peter McPherson, President of MSU, who was USA Deputy Secretary of the Treasury during the negotiation of the FTA. He has since constituted a high-level bilateral nongovernmental group to consider the prospects for another bold phase in the Canada — US relationship. Stay tuned.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2000-2001) — Winter 2000/2001 // Hiver 2000/2001, p. 41. Read the rest of this issue →
