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“The U.S. is going to get all its partners to gang up on China, but it’s clear that Canada did this because there was a gun to its head,” said Mary Lovely, an economics professor at Syracuse University who studies trade issues. “Now Canada has its hands tied.”

The U.S. and Canada reached their deal late Sunday, shortly before a deadline, and published the legal text that would allow it to be signed by the end of November. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as the new NAFTA is known, still needs to be ratified by the U.S. Congress and other legislatures before coming into force.

Article 32.10 requires any USMCA nation to notify the other two members three months before launching free trade talks with a non-market economy. The other countries can review any deal before it’s signed and, once a new pact between a USMCA member and a non-market economy takes effect, the other two members can terminate the trilateral North American agreement and strike a bilateral one.

I don't think the gun was necessarily to our head — it was in our mouth, with the trigger cocked and a full chamber

“They can basically pull the chute and kick you out by virtue of what they feel violates that clause,” said Peter MacKay, who served as foreign minister under Trudeau’s predecessor and is now a partner at law firm Baker & McKenzie. “The government doesn’t seem to be very forthcoming as to why they would want to become supplicant to the United States in a trade war with China.”

Others argue the change is more symbolic. “While I understand why people see this provision as a bit of an infringement on Canadian sovereignty, that’s not typical of an FTA,” said Matthew Kronby, a Toronto-based trade lawyer at Borden Ladner Gervais. “At a practical level, it has far less significance than some people are suggesting it does.”