"Better days are coming in the United States, and the prime minister could do worse than waiting for them."

To sign or not to sign, that is the question.

With Parliament set to reopen, Justin Trudeau is smack in the middle of his NAFTA moment. The prime minister should get his staff to dig out the video of President Donald Trump at the 2017 NATO Summit in Brussels.

I know, the PM was there.

But it would be good for him to take another look at the U.S. president forcefully shoving the prime minister of Montenegro out of his way, as Trump elbowed to the front of an event hilariously referred to as a “family photo.”

Shoving people out of the way is not necessarily the first thing you associate with Canadians. In fact, though generally fair and reasonable, Canadians pretty much can’t stand line jumpers or shove artists.

Speaking at the conclusion of the G7 Summit in Quebec City a few months ago, Trudeau said Canada would not be “pushed around” on the recent tariff assault from the Trump administration.

I think you will agree that while Canadians may be a lot of things, a national security threat to the United States isn’t one of them. Big city streets in the throws of a garbage strike in high summer smell better than Trump’s ludicrous allegations.

In a non-political way, a lot of Canadians applauded Trudeau’s pluckiness and that of his Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. Trump quickly reinforced the domestic impression that Trudeau had done the right thing by removing his signature from the G7 communique and calling the PM “weak” and a “backstabber.” Once again, the world was shown that the president is a colic baby with a loaded gun in his pram.

Canadians will soon find out two fundamental things: the outer circumference of Trump’s bullying and the authenticity of Trudeau’s resolve to resist it. It is called the NAFTA negotiation, but there’s a lot more on the table than trade.

Canada and the U.S. are at profound loggerheads on a host of big ticket issues that go to the heart of national identity.

Trudeau believes that the core of the NATO alliance is shared values amongst members, while Trump thinks it’s about NATO countries that are financial deadbeats who must pay their fair share or else.

On climate change, Trudeau at least says that governments around the world have to act in concert to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Trump believes the Paris Climate Accord is supported by a club of snowflakes who don’t seem to understand that real countries pollute their way to prosperity.

On immigration, Trudeau refers to Canada as a post-national country that doesn’t need to impose “core values” on immigrants as a precondition of qualifying to come to Canada. Trump wants to wall out Mexicans, ban Muslims and lock up the children of illegal aliens in kiddy concentration camps — often without even knowing who or where their parents are.

Trudeau wants a new deal with the U.S. to include labour standards and protection for workers. Trump has issued executive orders to make it easier to dismiss federal government workers and to weaken their unions.

And then there is trade itself.

Canada wants to renegotiate NAFTA, but does not want to end up on its knees when the deal is done. Accordingly, Trudeau wants a deal which includes a dispute resolution mechanism, a revised version of the the current review panel included in the agreement. Trump wants Section 19 dumped in favour of settling disputes in American courts under U.S. law.

Trudeau wants to “protect” Canadian dairy farmers and their $21 billion market, which operates under a supply management system. The current arrangement in this country features planned production, administered pricing and tariff walls. Trump wants to break down the walls of a system under which 11,000 Canadian dairy farms operate and gain greater access to that market for American dairy products.

None of these profound differences between the countries will stop Trudeau’s critics from accusing him of failure if the two countries can’t come to a free trade agreement. The Conservatives will reflexively attack whatever he does.

Nor will it stop the big business lobby from wringing its hands and declaring that the sky is falling if Trump and Trudeau can’t come to terms. The reality is that regardless of what happens in the talks, there will be massive trade between the two countries, just as there was before NAFTA.

Trudeau is right to keep negotiating without his knees knocking. Should compromises be made on both sides, the two countries can be dance partners again. But if it’s a bad deal, even if it is a punitive one in the short term, Canada should send this message loud and clear to Trump: “You may be able to punish us, but you can’t disgrace or belittle us.”

The one thing Trudeau cannot do given under-performance on a swath of other files is to sign a bad deal with Trump and then try to put lipstick on the pig.

Nor should anyone underestimate what sort of a negotiating partner Trump actually is — and what a deal with him may end up being worth.

The fact is, Trump’s presidency is in flames. He is a personal disgrace to his office and the probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller is moving closer and closer to the White House. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort has entered a guilty plea to charges he was facing, in addition to eight outstanding felony convictions, and is now cooperating with Mueller. The pressure is beginning to take its toll.

The missives from [email protected] (yes, con), always thuggish and puerile, have now become tasteless, tactless and utterly untoward.

While millions of his own citizens were facing the flood and deadly fury of Hurricane Florence, Trump was on social media denying the death toll in Puerto Rico a year earlier. Not only that, but he also claimed his administration’s pitiful relief effort was an “unsung, incredible success.”

That is, Trump was denying the demise of 3,000 people who died at least partly because the U.S. president put in a half-assed rescue and recovery effort. It was a year on from Hurricane Maria before all Puerto Ricans had their power restored.

Trump’s excuse at the time for not getting the job done was that Puerto Rico — wait for it — is “surrounded by water.”

And as many of you will be shocked to find out, it’s a “big ocean” that surrounds the island, the president noted.

So naturally, the country that has put men on the moon was unable to fix power lines and get water supplies to American citizens living here on Earth.

Added to his epic lying, alleged assaults on women, full scale war on the environment and soft-spot for dictators and bullies, Trump’s remarks about Puerto Rico finally irked some top Republicans.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida and former Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis firmly rejected the president’s denial of the death toll in Puerto Rico and his absurd claim it was all a Democratic Party plot to discredit him.

Trudeau should bear all this in mind as he decides whether to sign or not to sign a new deal with Trump.

But there is one more thing he should remember. Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic advisor, quit his job over the president’s ignorant insistence that the U.S. levy high tariffs on steel and aluminum coming from friendly nations like Canada.

With both Mueller and the midterm elections bearing down on Trump’s misbegotten presidency, Trudeau should think long and hard before bowing to a man who may soon be joining Richard Nixon in America’s political Hall of Shame.

Better days are coming in the United States, and the prime minister could do worse than waiting for them.

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