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Industry backers fear that higher costs and tougher regulations in Canada will place domestic producers at a disadvantage over their American competitors.

TRADE

Trump has publicly declared the North American Free Trade Agreement “a disaster” and he opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership. If protectionist policies are implemented, it could throw Alberta’s cross-border trade into disarray.

“The TPP issue is obviously important to Alberta, because one of the things we got with TPP is access to new markets for beef, pork and wheat,” said Chris Kukucha, political scientist at the University of Lethbridge. “That’s going to hurt.

“What Canada will now have to do is individually negotiate a bilateral (agreement) with markets like Korea or Japan.”

Greg Anderson, a political scientist at the University of Alberta, agreed the TPP is dead. “This was a big Obama thing but it’s off the table now. And that’s bad news.”

Anderson said NAFTA, on the other hand, will be much harder to withdraw from. “You don’t just unwind it with a bunch of trade barriers.

“It tends to be a bit of a political piñata, a catch-all for all things bad. And I’m not sure what he feels is bad with it. But (his stance) does signal a kind of protectionism that is bad.”

There’s concern the U.S. could enact punitive tariffs on Canadian exports to protect American jobs. The U.S. is by far Alberta’s largest trading partner, with annual merchandising exports totalling $77.5 billion over the past five years, according to the Alberta government.