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They turned Detroit into the Silicon Valley of the automobile era and built giants with huge Canadian subsidiaries. They did so in Canada because they understood the country was a member of Britain’s Commonwealth and enjoyed tariff-free trade with its 52 members. The U.S. didn’t have the same advantage.

This meant that their cars — if made and assembled in Canada by their subsidiaries – had access to and could tap into the biggest free trade market on earth.

The result was that, by the 1920s, Canada was the second largest auto exporter in the world and Canadian-made cars, namely the McLaughlin Buick, were the choice globally, preferred by British royalty and tycoons everywhere.

North America’s automotive companies grew during the Depression, then retooled their factories for the Second World War effort. Then everything changed.

America went on to bigger success as its highway system and middle class exploded. But Canada’s auto industry sputtered because after the war, Britain ended the Commonwealth tariff-free privilege and instead turned its sights onto joining a booming Europe.

Canadians proposed the Auto Pact to the Americans and they agreed. This “fair trade” agreement became the template for the 1989 Free Trade Agreement, then NAFTA. Now Trump is revising the deal because Mexico’s excessively low wage levels have gutted the auto regions of Canada and the U.S.

Mexico is the target, not Canada, and even if NAFTA is rescinded, the two northern Amigos will continue to integrate and get along trade-wise. This is based in part, as before, on the deep-seated socio-economic relationships between the two, but also because Canada will become more useful to the United States in terms of trade.