Emerson's prepared speech at the U.S. State Department reveals modest Canadian government plans to talk free trade with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras & Guatemala.
Canada is focusing on free trade deals with countries in the Western hemisphere.
Although Canada does have a sparse portfolio of trade deals with Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, the United States has outperformed Canada in free trade negotiations for many years now.
Given that Canada wants to double trade and investment with Brazil by 2012, we hope that the Canadian government approaches future trade negotiations making better use of Canada's rich resources including uranium and water as bargaining chips.
In particular, we hope that Canada fares better than it did under both the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) & North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the U.S.
As we describe in our analysis America Drives Free Trade, current Canadian free trade agreements expand foreign ownership thus hollowing out the Canadian economy while lowering the standard of living for many Canadians.
What would make a bad situation even worse for Canada is an approach that copied the American-dominated free trade agreements into "cookie cutter" treaties to be used with other trading partners like Brazil.
