(CNN)The newly announced preliminary trade deal with Mexico is a welcome breakthrough in the Trump administration’s trade strategy. It should benefit workers and consumers in both countries and should provide needed stability to the Mexican economy.
It’s a somewhat shocking turn of events that the Trump administration is closer to finalizing a trade deal with Mexico than with Canada. The newly elected Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has leftist leanings, but he wanted this deal confirmed. Ostensibly, he understands that Mexico needs access to the American consumer market for the economy to grow and for wages to rise as promised.
We hope these get resolved quickly and in ways that lead to less encumbered North American trade. But one issue that US trade negotiators shouldn’t sweep under the rug is Ottawa’s disregard for American intellectual property — our computer software, drugs, movies and other patented or copyrighted products.
USTR also criticizes Canada for an ill-defined educational exception for copyrighted material, for denying remuneration to US creators and performers and for proposed changes that would further ratchet down the country’s prescription drug price controls.
It’s a sad state of affairs when our relatively poor neighbor, Mexico, respects American property rights and patents more than our relatively rich one: Canada.
All this is happening while Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland accuse the United States of unfair trade practices and tariffs. As hypocritical as it sounds, the Canadians do have legitimate complaints about the new aluminum and steel tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, and in a new North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada, those tariffs should be eliminated.
We desperately want to see a North American free trade zone with little or no tariffs across our borders, but that can’t happen if Canada continues to blatantly violate our IP protections. Canada must be held to American standards on intellectual property, which in the medium and long run would advance investment, innovation and global technological prowess in both nations over the decades to come.
It should be. On trade, no one wants Canada left out in the cold — but we can’t have a 21st century NAFTA trade deal if Canada keeps skimming off the top from our highest value-added industries.
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Awesome article.