Oh, to be a trade reporter in Canada. I crossed over the border this week to a place where the renegotiation of Nafta is front-page news, and people appear to understand – and to be interested in — countervailing duties. In the United States, which initiated this vast shuffling of bureaucrats from North American capital to North American capital, trade tends to take a back seat to other policy and political issues.

Chrystia Freeland, the foreign affairs minister, said this week that all Canadians are becoming trade experts. Chad Bown, a trade expert I often talk to at the Peterson Institution for International Economics, retweeted that comment with an amendment: “My only disagreement is on her verb tense. In my experience, all Canadians a good time ago somehow became amazing trade experts.”

The somehow, of course, is having an economy that is so dependent on trade, and being on the receiving end of many United States trade actions. Another came Tuesday as the United States ruled in favor of a trade complaint by Boeing and imposed large duties on Bombardier’s new CSeries jet.

The Bombardier ruling added tension to Nafta talks, and while discussions were cordial, you could feel the frustration beginning to bubble under the surface. One of the main irritants is that while the United States has discussed President Trump’s more ambitious proposals for renegotiating Nafta, it hasn’t yet put forth concrete text detailing them.

“Without a formal position tabled, we can’t respond to it,” Ms. Freeland said at the end of the session. Robert Lighthizer, the United States Trade Representative, blamed the delays an especially lengthy review process in Washington.

There is a long road ahead for negotiators, who were already looking a bit rumpled and weary. At least there should be plenty of work for trade reporters.