In early January, Prime Minister Mark Carney headed to Davos and addressed the assembly with a message that everyone already knew — the global multilateral order was being dismantled.
Globalization was now viewed as an economic tool, tariffs as weapons, supply chains vulnerabilities.
It was a great speech. The type of speech that eventually gets quoted back to you in different ways than you intended.
By April, Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative (USTR), testified in front of the House ways and means committee stating Canada was “doubling down on globalization when we’re trying to correct for the problems of globalization. Those are two models that don’t fit together very well.”
While he may have been right, Canada should feel uncomfortable knowing that he is speaking a language that it helped shape.
That requires additional explanation.
Over the past few months my colleagues and I reviewed nearly 1,000 written submissions and analyzed transcripts for three days of testimony that occurred in late December to the USTR public consultation in advance of the Canada-United States-Mexico-Agreement (CUSMA) Joint Review.
We were examining how businesses were advocating for their interests within the context of the agreement.
What we found was that the language used during the USTR proceedings has changed significantly compared to the NAFTA era.
“Comparative advantage” was mentioned twice. “Globalism” was not referenced once. Instead, the space where such terms previously resided was occupied by job creation, community support, regional solidarity against China, and fair treatment for companies that had already invested in and conformed to regulatory requirements.
This is a legitimate argument; however, it is not an argument for free trade. The most surprising aspect of our findings was who was championing this argument.
Goldy Hyder of the Business Council of Canada testified that “Fortress North America” is already the terminology employed by Washington policymakers. Ontario Premier Doug Ford had already been touting “Fortress Am-Can” for months. Canada did not invent this framing. However, Canada supported it, built upon it, and inserted it into the formal record.
So, when Greer interpreted Canada’s decision to diversify trade as a provocative act, he was referencing a claim that Canada’s own representatives had advocated for; specifically, that alignment is a condition for access.
Carney’s China deal put the tensions on full display.
The terms were modest. Chinese EV tariff rates would drop from 100 per cent (the U.S. rate) to 6.1 per cent on the first 49,000 vehicles imported annually; in return China reduced tariffs on Canadian exports of canola, lobsters, and peas.
There are legitimate arguments supporting the deal, especially for canola producers who have endured significant difficulties in recent years. This was not a bold geopolitical shift. On the day the deal was finalized, Washington could not agree with itself.
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that the deal seemed fine, while Greer went on CNBC and labelled it “problematic.”
A week later, Trump posted on Truth Social threatening Carney with 100 per cent tariffs if he thought he could turn Canada into a “drop off port” for China. No provision of the deal had changed. What had changed was how it was framed.
Once the deal was reframed as a perimeter breach, Ford’s fortress logic ran full circle: match or exceed U.S. tariffs on Chinese EV’s or lose your place at the table. The deal’s 6.1 per cent tariff rate was not a match.
These two vocabularies do not have equal institutional standing.
The fortress framing is contained within the USTR record, employed by Washington policymakers, and advocated by some of Canada’s top business voices. The diversification argument — which Carney is advancing in Brussels, Tokyo and Beijing — has no equivalent institutional foothold within that process.
Partners familiar with the USTR testimony will question which of these vocabularies represent Canadian policy. The answer is both and that creates an unworkable situation for anyone seeking to negotiate a long-term commitment.
Greer precisely articulated his position to the committee: “No one will probably ever accuse me of being a free trader.”
The regime that Canada is negotiating with has declared the organizational principle of Canadian trade policy to be exactly what it is attempting to fix. Carney recognized this at Davos.
But naming a problem and solving it are two different things.
As the coming CUSMA renegotiations reach the contested provisions, it will be the fortress-framing arguments that possess institutional backing. Canada will have to decide whether to accept this framing or risk being perceived as defending globalization against its own continent.
Greer has already scripted that scenario.
Canada helped him write it.
