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It is hard, otherwise, to make sense of the government’s apparent belief that the talks, instituted at the behest of a government that is not only the most protectionist U.S. administration in nearly a century, but also the most overtly regressive, offer a golden opportunity to convert NAFTA into a wish list of the most fevered ambitions of liberal progressives, circa this minute.

As outlined by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in her University of Ottawa speech Monday morning, they include not only incorporating existing side letters on labour and environmental standards into the core of the agreement, but also “efforts to address climate change.” Also “a new chapter on gender rights.” Not to mention “an Indigenous chapter.” Oh, and we’re also going to keep supply management and every existing exclusion for the cultural industries, thank you, two areas specifically targeted by the Trump administration for elimination.

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Well, all right: maybe it’s just an opening bargaining position. The first two, what is more, are no more than what the Trump administration has itself proposed, I’m guessing out of a belief that they would primarily disadvantage the Mexicans. But do Trudeau’s people really think the Trumpians could be induced to accept bringing climate change into it? And gender? And Indigenous rights?

Even if these are as fantastically meaningless as, for example, the gender chapter lately added to the Canada-Chile free trade agreement (“The Parties acknowledge the importance of incorporating a gender perspective into the promotion of inclusive economic growth” should give you the flavour of it) it is hard to imagine Trump or his advisers accepting the symbolism, or the precedent. On the other hand, having publicly raised these issues, with the uncompromising constituencies attached to each, it is hard to imagine Trudeau’s people signing onto an agreement that does not contain them.