Just watched the 20 minute Chrystia Freeland “news” conference.
Apparently she’s promised “not to negotiate in public” which means she is unwilling to address any substantive questions at all.
This week’s talks have ended but they will be back at it Wednesday of next week.
Just one problem, which Freeland, of course, dodged, Trump has basically said that he is not moving on any of the key points and that he’d be just as happy to drop a 25% tariff on Canadian made cars. Kinda tough to negotiate around that.
Which means that, after a week of “intense” negotiations Freeland is going back to Canada with nothing except the fact that The Donald is planning on taking his bilateral agreement with Mexico and notifying Congress that it will be signed 90 days from now.
Jay Currie 
The crazy thing is all they have to do is agree to the 75% origination rule that Mexico agreed to.
That tells me how deep the Chinese connections are in the Liberal party, and how much influence they have. And why Trudeau did the bone-headed stupid pipeline stuff, needing to sell the oil to China.
Maybe the real story here is that Canadian trade disputes are really a proxy war with China, like the war in Angola years ago was a proxy war with Russia. I wonder what Canadians would think about being drawn into that by Trudeau and the Liberals?
If you read this CBC story from last year you will see the problem. Trudeau and his band of boobs had no idea that they had no standing to make demands going into NAFTA negotiations. No leverage, no brains, no deal.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nafta-canada-demands-list-1.4246498
How in the world could they have thought that any of those social justice, virtue signaling demands would even be discussed in all seriousness?
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/canada
“The U.S. data report a $17.1 billion goods deficit with Canada in 2017, and a $71.0 billion goods deficit with Mexico. Both countries, however, reported substantially larger U.S. goods surpluses in the same relationship. In 2017, Canada reported a $97.6 billion surplus, and Mexico a $132.4 billion surplus.”
So each of Canada and Mexico benefits from trade with the USA. You would think that in Canada’s case there would be some give and take to ensure continued access to a market that benefits us. But no, the boobs in Ottawa don’t understand economics and would rather show how “woke” they are by standing up to that bully Trump.
And Trump and his administration showed just how important Canada is by cutting them out and dealing with Mexico alone. In the end, Trump will get the deal he wants, and perhaps will magnanimously acquiesce on one or two things so Trudeau and his useless twats don’t look really bad.
As some of the smarter people on Twitter and in the MSM point out, Trudeau was basically hooped when Mexico signed on. He had been hoping to paint Trump as a big, bad, unreasonable, bully which would resonate with the Trump haters in Canada. But the Mexicans were able to cut a deal with Trump so why can’t Justin?
Derek, your Chinese theory is attractive but it may give the Libs too much credit. My own sense is that Trudeau and his advisers had no idea what to do with the pipeline file (and buying it was possibly the most economically illiterate thing I have ever seen.) Vis a vis the trade deal, Trudeau simply did not believe that Trump would not make a deal which was somewhat favourable to Canada. He and his advisors seem to think Canada is somehow “important” to the US. Based on this misperception, Trudeau and Freeland larded their trade pitch with a bunch of extraneous BS about social issues and a calm belief that Trump was really just posturing on the “fair trade” thing.
Has not worked out very well has it.
Possibly. Assume stupidity vs some complicated plan.
I wonder if security is going to have to be called on the Ontario and Alberta delegations this week. Oh to be a bug on the wall at those meetings.
I am with you on the baseline, “Assume stupidity”.