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Keith Head, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business who has researched the economic impact of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, said the deal had a much bigger impact on Canada’s economy than NAFTA.

For one thing, the proportion of Canadian exports sent to Mexico has grown only modestly under NAFTA, from 0.7 per cent in 1997 to 1.5 per cent in 2015, according to a report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

“We still don’t trade a whole lot with Mexico,” Head said. “The big deal, from our perspective, is the Canada-U.S. agreement.”

It’s hard to determine what causes economic growth

Global Affairs Canada cites many impressive-sounding statistics about Canada’s economy under NAFTA: merchandise trade between the three countries tripled to US$1 trillion between 1993 and 2015; Canadian exports to the U.S. have grown at an annualized rate of 4.6 per cent; and NAFTA partners now account for more than one-quarter of the world’s gross domestic product, despite having less than seven per cent of its population.

However, correlation does not imply causation. It’s hard to know how much of that growth can be attributed to factors such as interest rates and the strength of the Canadian dollar, let alone the direct effect of NAFTA or the U.S.-Canada FTA.

Economists generally agree that free trade deals are good for the economy. Businesses can sell more products to other countries and consumers can save money by buying cheaper imported products. But studies about NAFTA’s effect on the U.S. economy suggest that benefit has been small.