Article content continued

I asked Rosenstein what he thought Trudeau should do next. After a few seconds, he said merely: “Cut a deal.”

He’s right.

Trudeau must find a back channel to fix this — and soon. Retaliation is not an option because Canada has no leverage. And the emotional and unprofessional blurts coming out of Ottawa that U.S. steel tariffs for “security reasons” are “insulting” or Trudeau’s characterization of tough bargaining as “being pushed around” by Trump are inappropriate and unproductive.

The fact is Canada has been totally tone-deaf when it comes to NAFTA and Trump won’t ever sign because of Mexico’s obscenely low wage rates.

The best Canada can hope for is HAFTA, or half of NAFTA, such as existed between 1989 and 1994 until Mexico lobbied its way in.

Trump’s priority is to reduce America’s $800-billion-a-year trade deficit and Mexico is a big culprit along with China, Germany and Japan.

Canada and the U.S., by contrast, have no trade deficit issue, but Trump is upset at being embarrassed by Trudeau’s unnecessary public push-back, so he refused to sign the G7 communique and seized on our protectionist 270 per cent tariffs on milk.

These tariffs are part of Canada’s dairy supply management scheme that should have been phased out years ago. New Zealand and Australia have also stated that Canada cannot enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership until it scraps supply management.

So why hasn’t this happened? Because half of Canada’s 11,000 dairy farms are located in Quebec and so are most of our prime ministers.