Trudeau ready to meet Trump (and Mexicans) to renegotiate USMCA

During President Trump's first term, the US of A entered into negotiations with Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which the President called a "terrible deal". While the Donald frequently expressed his love for Canada, he took aim at Prime Minister Blackie McBlackface, calling him "two faced", "weak", and a "far-left lunatic."

The result was the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced NAFTA, effective in 2020. 

This past August, as the campaign for the 2024 election started to heat up, President Trump said, "I terminated NAFTA. That's a pretty big thing. A lot of people said it would be impossible to do. I got it done, and we have a great deal now. What we have to do is make it much better even, and we'll be able to do that very shortly."

Just three weeks prior to his landslide victory, President Trump vowed to renegotiate the USMCA.  "I am announcing today that upon taking office, I will formally notify Mexico and Canada of my intention to invoke the six-year renegotiation provisions of the USMCA that I put in," he told the Detroit Economic Club.

The USMCA agreement is up for review on its sixth anniversary [not "six-year anniversay"! Ed.], when the three countries will have to confirm in writing if they wish to extend the pact or re-evaluate it. "That was the hardest thing I had to get, they didn't want that," Mr Trump said of the unique review clause. "I said, 'Nope, I want to be able to renegotiate in six years, otherwise we're not making the deal.' And I got it, and it's coming due very soon. Oh, I'm going to have a lot of fun." 

President Trump said he wanted to better protect and promote the American auto industry, which has long been centred in Detroit. "I'll also seek strong new protections against transgender ["transshipment" shurely, Ed.] so that China and other countries cannot smuggle their products and auto parts into the United States tax-free through Mexico to the detriment of our workers and our supply chains. They smuggle this stuff in. They don't pay anything. We're going to have very strong language on that."

Car-makers and car-buyers, stay tuned!

Rouleau Commission public hearings end with a week of bullshit

While Americans were giving thanks at the end of last week, Canadians were giving thanks for the end of the public hearings of the Rouleau Commission of inquiry into whether the Liberal government of Canuckistan was justified in invoking the never-before-used Emergencies to quell the Freedom Convoy protests of last February. 

As reported in Walt's first post on this subect, the public fact-finding hearings began six weeks ago with the Parade of the Snowflakes. The week before last saw the Parade of the Minions -- the Commissioner of the RCMP and assorted deputies and secretaries of the Privy Council (Americans read: Cabinet) Office and the Prime Minister's Office. Most of them were shady-side-of-50s females so smitten with Blackie McBlackface that they would say or do anything, anything to protect him from harm -- physical or political.

This past week was the big finale, the Parade of the Ministers: the Honourable William Bliar (President of the Privy Council and Minister of Emergency Preparedness) [Seriously? Ed.]; the Honourable Marco Mendacious (Minister of Public Safety); the Honourable Omar Algebra (the Saudi-born Syrian-Canadian Minister of Transport); and the Honourable David Lamentable (Minister of Justice [sic]).

The semi-finalist was the fragrant and Honourable Chrystia Freeland (Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister). At right is a note from Ms Freeland, tendered in evidence. What does the handwriting tell you about her?  

The star attraction though, the big finish on Friday, was Emperor Trudeau II, his own self. Those who expected him to wilt under questioniong about his decision -- and it was his alone -- to order the most sweeping suspension of Canadian civil liberties since the October Crisis of 1970 (his father was prime minister then) were deeply disappointed.

Not only did he deny doing anything wrong, hinting that the "worst" might have happened had he not invoked the Emergencies Act, but he proclaimed himself "serene" -- confident that he could and would do the same again if he thought it was the right thing to do. That's exactly what Canadians are afraid of!

The lawyers refrained from questioning Mr Socks about his whereabouts at the height of the peaceful demonstration, so as not to draw attention to the fact of his hiding at a cottage somewhere in the hills north of Ottawa. Nor did they press him on his characterization of the protesters as a "tiny minority with unacceptable views." 

They did, however, ask him if he was wrong to call unvaccinated people names like "racists" and "misogynists". He denied having done so. Those epithets were uttered in a September 2021 appearance on La semaine des 4 Julie (a Québec talk show), in which Junior said, "We all know people who are a little hesitant (about vaccination), and we're going to try and convince them, but there are also people who are fiercely opposed to vaccination; who don't believe in science, who are often misogynists, who are often racist as well."

In his testimony to the Commission, M Trudeau said that "using protests to demand changes to public policy is something that I think is worrisome." How about that! Doesn't every protest have as its object the changing of public policy?

Now it falls to the Honourable Mr Justice Paul Rouleau -- a Liberal appointee and former Party apparatchik -- to decide whether the Liberal government's decision to invoke the Emergencies Act was lawful. We'll let Agent 3 pick up this thread later today.

The Ant & The Grasshopper - Canadian version

A reader has passsed along an updated Canadian version of the Aesop fable. 

Old Version: 

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house, and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. 

Modern Canadian Version: 

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. 

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBC, CTV and Global show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. 

The Globe and Mail does a feature story. Canada is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on CBC News with Adrienne Arsenault. along with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green."

People Against Poverty stage a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We Shall Overcome". Then Justin Trudeau has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake. Chrystia Freeland condemns the ant and blames former Prime Minister Harper, Former Premiers Jason Kenney, Brad Wall and Cristy Clark and Conrad Black for the Grasshopper's' plight. 

Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh explain in an interview with Rosemary Barton that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share. 

Finally, the Liberal/NDP coalition drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs, not consulting with First Nations, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes; his home is confiscated by the government's Green Czar, Stephen Guilbeault, and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his freeloading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it. 

The ant has disappeared in the snow never to be seen again. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize and ramshackle the once prosperous and peaceful neighbourhood. The entire nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it. 

Moral of the story: Be careful how you vote in the next election, because you are an ant! You may wish to pass this on to other ants, but don't bother sending it on to any grasshoppers because they wouldn't understand it anyway.

Note from Ed. to our American readers: You can easily adapt this cautionary tale to the American politico-economic situation. Just subsitute, for the Canuch lickspittle media named, CNN, NBC, CBS, etc. For Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, read Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And for Liberal/NDP coalition, read Democrats and Bernie Sanders. I should have posted this before the mid-terms, since some  American ants appear not to have got the message and are still voting for the grasshoppers.  

Trudeau caves! = We ARE winning (part 2)

Ed. here. Earlier this week Walt wrote that he was "watching and waiting." The waiting is over, with big news overnight about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the quasi-defeat of Just In Trudeau, the dictator of Canada. We'll start with that the less important of the two, and pass on news from our agent in Ukraine later today.

To understand what happened in the world's second-coldest capital city yesterday, you need to understand the workings of Canada's parliament. Like that of the USA, the federal legislature is bi-cameral. There is an elected lower house, the House of Commons, analogous to the House of Representatives. And there is an upper house, the Senate. Unlike in America, Canadian senators are appointed by the government of the day, to serve until struck by lightning or age 75, which ever comes first.

In times past, this meant that Liberals were in the majority in the Canuck Senate most of the time, because the "Natural Governing Party" was in power, most of the time. But when he became leader of the Gliberal Party, M Trudeau decreed that henceforth, Liberal senators would not be Liberals any more, i.e. not members of the Liberal caucus, so they could think and vote in a non-partisan manner, for the good of the country.

Not only that, he said, all his new appointees would be "independent", with no party affiliation. Canadians were not surprised when all of them turned out to be, if not "Big-L Liberals", then "small-L liberals"... and great admirers of the new emperor who put them into their cushy seats in the Red Chamber. (No kidding. That's what it's called, not without reason.)

Fast forward to February 2022. Truckers and supporters of the Freedom Convoy are occupying Parliament Hill and its surrounds making it difficult for the Karens and Kens to get to Starbucks to sip their lattes. After dismissing the protesters as a "small fringe minority" of "racists, neo-Nazis, transphobes, white supremacists" yada yada yada, and refusing to meet with them or even listen to their grievances, Blackie McBlackface invokes the Emergencies Act, a 1988 statute designed to give the government the power to deal with an insurrection.

The Emergencies Act allows the government to call in the armed forces, but Gerald Butts (the puppeteer who pulls the emperor's strings) didn't like the optics of that, so the Liberal party line was that it gave the police "enhanced powers", which were on full display last weekend as an old lady was trampled by a mounted police horse. See WWW passim.

The police already had all the power they needed to enforce existing laws if any were being broken. For the most part, the protesters had done nothing beyond agressive snow-shovelling. At the Ambassador Bridge which connects Detroit and Windsor ON, police had already cleared the blockade without need their "enhanced powers"... and without pepper-spraying anybody.

The real teeth of the Emergencies Act, it turned out, were in the provisions allowing the government to freeze or seize (read: steal) the bank accounts of anyone who donated to crowd-funding sites for the support of the convoy. Embarrassingly for the Liberals, the hacked list of donors included members of the Toronto Police and Ontario Provincial Police, as well as members of the armed forces.

The Emergencies Act requires that its use by approved by Parliament as soon as possible, so on the 17th, as police were donning their camos and riot gear, "debate" began in the House of Commons, only to be suspended on the 18th, when the Mounties and other cops started advancing on the protesters. Mustn't let the MPs see the shit-hammer falling!

The "debate" -- mostly lies and name-calling by the Liberals who knew they couldn't lose in the House of Commons, since the farther-left NDP had already declared its support -- droned on through Saturday and Sunday and most of Monday, with a vote scheduled for 2000 on the 21st.

This is when things started to get interesting. Mere hours before the vote, Mr Socks declared that even though the police were "making progress", there was still a serious "threat to democracy", so it would be necessary to leave the Emergencies Act in place for an indefinite period. 

But wait, there was more. Having heard rumours that some Liberals and knee-dippers who had misgivings about the Emergencies Act (especially the seizure of nearly 100 bank accounts) might develop the "diplomatic flu" and not be there for the vote, Emperor Trudeau II declared the vote a "matter of confidence", meaning that if the Commons did not approve his power grab, he and the government would resign, forcing yet another election. Cazart!

Sure enough, when push came to shove on Monday night, all the Liberal MPs, all the "New" Democrats, and the Greens' Ellizabeth May -- "Ms May? Party of one?" -- voted to approve. The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois nayed to no avail. Final score: Pro-tyranny 185 - anti-tyranny 151. Tyranny wins.

But hold on... The Commons' approval of Trudeau's shameful over-reach still needed rubber-stamping by the usually supine Senate. So the "debate" moved to the Red Chamber, where approval of the Liberals' high-handed tactics suddenly appeared to be no sure thing. 

The Conservative senators declared themselves opposed, the senators once known as Liberals demurred, and the "independent caucus" raised a lot of difficult questions, such as: With the "occupation" of Ottawa now ended, was it really necessary for the Emergencies Act to continue in force? 

On Tuesday, Mr Socks -- flanked by Minister of Gender Equity and Finance Chrystia Freeland (the one pushing for the seizure of bank accounts), "Justice" Minister David Lametti, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendacious, and poor old ex-cop Bill Blair, Minister of Emergency Preparedness" -- said that while the "immediate emergency situation is over", the issue itself "won't go away." Why, he had heard that truckers were camped on private property outside Ottawa, just waiting for the state of emergency to be ended so they could re-enter the capital!

That was Tuesday. Yesterday afternoon, in the greatest face-saving statement since "I never had sex with that girl", the Prime Minister of All Canuckistan said he is ending the use of the Emergencies Act "because the federal government has been assured that police have sufficient tools to deal with any further challenges." Which is exactly what the opposition had been saying all along.

M Trudeau also said an enquiry, mandated by the never-before-used legislation, will begin within 60 days. Reports on the invocation of the act and the triggering of sweeping police powers will later be tabled in the House of Commons. So the point is now moot and a vote in the Senate will not be necessary. Everything's OK. Nothing to see here, folks...

From my corner of the forest, that smells like victory. But then, as the Chinese say "Shan gao, huangdi yuan" -- "The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away." I note with interest that convoys (yes, plural) of freedom riders, some displaying Canadian flags and other "symbols of hate", are now closing on Washington DC. Stay tuned!

Footnote: Comment from A.E. Neuman in the Groan & Wail: "So, no wheels of mass destruction after all." LMAO

Walt is watching and waiting

My apologies, dear reader, for not posting too much this week. Big Things have been happening, or are expected to happen, and I thought I'd wait until events have fully eventuated. The Big Thing that has yet to happen is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. President Brandon says he knows that Putin has made up his mind to invade. 

Well, duh! That was obvious eight years ago when Russian armed forces occupied the Crimea! The question is when they will move across the border, where over 100,000 are presently massed. Sleepy Joe says it could be "within days", or possibly "within weeks". Like the street-corner preachers prophesying the end of the world, President Demented can't give an exact date. 

When and if Russia tries to take Ukraine back into its empire, you know where we at WWW will stand. When the balloon goes up, will the Paranoid States of America do anything other than more tut-tutting? This week the Canucks withdrew their military personnel -- all 200 or so -- to Poland, in case the Russkis attack the Polacks first. Don't bet on them, or any other members of NATO, actually sending their sons/daughters/whatever into battle. Lifetime pct .980.

Meanwhile, in Canuckistan itself, the House of Commons is debating whether Emperor Trudeau was right to invoke (for the first time in history) the Emergency Measures Act of 1988, to quell the "insurrection" (read: Freedom Convoy and similar demonstrations) mounted by a "small fringe minority" in the world's second-coldest capital.

Like all third world dictators, Mr Socks and his henchmen (and henchwomen -- Canada's "Diplomat of the Year" 2018), didn't wait for Parliament's approval of the use of the Act. In fact the debate scheduled for Friday was cancelled, so MPs wouldn't be in harm's way when the Mounties moved in to trample old women and children. Just like that scene from Doctror Zhivago. Who would have thought anything like this could ever happen in the Not-so-great Not-so-white North?

I watched part of the debate in the House of Commons on Thursday. The governing Liberals contributed further demonization of the protesters by repeating the bullshit about "swastika flags", "Confederate flags" and "other symbols of hate". 

I have watched hours of video and never saw a Nazi flag. There was one Confederate flag, with an image of a big rig across the centre, and it was being carried (it turned out) by an agent provocateur, antifa type. 

As for other symbols of hate, they must be referring to the "Fuck Trudeau!" flags. I certainly did see lots of those! 

After yesterday's see-no-evil recess, the debate -- if the word includes hurling insults across the floor -- resumes today, and continues until everybody gets tired or 2359 EST Sunday, whichever comes firs. A vote is scheduled for Monday night, by which time (the Gliberals hope) everyone will have gone home. "Nothing to see here, folks."

The other use of the Emergency Measures Act which raises serious moral and legal questions is the federal government's seizure of the trucks and other property of the protesters, as well as the bank accounts of anyone -- including foreigners who use Canadian banks -- who donated to the support of the Freedom Convoy. 

That amounts to the theft -- no other word will do -- of millions of dollars contributed by lovers of freedom in Canuckistan and the USA. The excuse given by the fragrant Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland (see "Diplomat of the Year") is that "foreigners" must not be allowed to "interfere" with Canada's "democracy". 

Walt asks, what kind of democracy, what kind of rule of law is it when you can start enforcing measures that have not yet been approved by Parliament? Reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. "Verdict first! Trial later!" Think about it! If they seize (steal!) your money because you hold "unacceptable views", they can stop you from donating to any organization with which they disagree, including churches and charities as well as political parties. That can't be right!

So, always, Walt will be waiting and watching, and will say more if, as and when. 

Meanwhile, I can't resist passing on this Dilbert strip, from a couple of days ago. 

Do any of you use the self-service checkouts? (Bill Burr did a funny riff on this subject some years ago, and we'll put it up if Ed. can find it.) I refuse to use them, as a matter of principle. Those things are putting lower-echelon people out of jobs! Besides, I like dealing with a human cashier, so if there's a problem I have someone's neck to put my hands around.

Apology from Ed.: Sorry to all who saw the "raw" version of this post. I  hit the wrong button. I regret having done so as much as Trudeau regrets having to arrogate to himself the powers of a tin-pot dictator.

Canadian government budget statement

As a service to our Canadian readers, who may not have heard or understood the Liberal government's budget, released last week, we repost the statement released the next day by Chrystia Freeland, the lady in the tight red dress and also alleged Minister of Finance.

You're welcome.

Latest from the Babylon Bee + Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Click here to read the article, in your trusted source for Christian new satire.

Walt is reliably informed (thanks, Agent 2!) that tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Some Canucks are so smug (Hello, Just In Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland!) that they're probably giving thanks that they are not as other men/women are (St. Luke 18:11). But to all the rest, Walt, Poor Len Canayen [and Ed.! Ed.] send best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving!

Note from Ed.: Aren't you going to repeat the old joke about why Canadians celebrate in October rather than November?

Reply from Walt: No.

VIDEO: "There'll be no more clean water, no more animals!"

As I was saying, there's a heap big protest going on across Canada, as a handful of Indians (politically incorrect term for "First Nations") and hundreds of radical left activists block railway tracks to protest the building of a natural gas pipeline across "Indian land" claimed by the Wet'suwet'en people of northern British Columbia.

The blockades have brought traffic on much of Canada's already struggling rail network to a halt, but according to the Prime Minister of Canuckistan "reconciliation" trumps economics, and the "unfortunate situation" must be resolved through "dialogue, not force". Walt finds it strange that Mr Socks hasn't sent his ace dialoguer, Chrystia Freeland (now Deputy Prime Minister in Charge of Nothing) to negotiate with the protesters. "These people are impossible! I'm going home!"

Here's a very short video scraped from CTV News yesterday, showing what happens when you to try to dialogue with climate alarmists and professional protesters.



"There won't be any more clean drinking water or any more animals!" Dontcha love it? And by the way, does that guy sound like an Indian to you? In Canada, First Nations people have a distinctive way of speaking, which you'll hear if you watch North of 60, a great drama series [soap opera? Ed.] produced in the 1990s by (incredibly) the CBC, and still viewable on APTN (the Aboriginal Peoples TV Network) and YouTube. But I digress. That snowflake sounds like a whitey to me. And why is it that all these protesters are wearing antifa-style masks and balaclavas? Just askin'...

UPDATE ADDED at 0725: Canada's Public Safety and Emergency Unpreparedness Minister Bill Blair has just announced that the Mounties in British Columbia have agreed to withdraw from their position on Wet'suwet'en territory and barricade themselves in a nearby town named L'alamo. [Ed., please check town name.]

So Just In (from Africa) Trudeau's Liberal government has caved to a few dozen radical activists who don't even have the support of the majority of the Wet'suwet'en people, as represented by their elected (as opposed to hereditary) chiefs. In today's Canuckistan, the mob rules!

UPDATED: Iraq at Sweet (?) Sixteen - Why are we still there?

UPDATED ADDED 25/3/19 - This comes under the heading of "Further reading", but I just became aware of it this afternoon. Click here to read a transcript of Dr Ron Paul's speech to Congress opposing the authorization of military force against Iraq. If only they'd have listened!

Today is the 16th anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and then... chaos. The Paranoid States of America and its "Coalition of the Willing" involved themselves in the endless Muslim civil war -- a four-cornered one featuring Sunni Muslims vs Shia Muslims vs ISIS vs Kurds -- and there we are, still... 16 years later, after the expenditure of trillions of dollars (literally) and the loss of 1000s of lives of American and other Westerns. 16 years...

Is there any sign of the conflict in Iraq ending? NO! POTUS and our top military people tell us ISIS is "just about" defeated, reduced to a few hundred jihadis encircled in a shithole somewhere in Syria. Once they surrender, we can declare victory... again... and go home. Errr, not the part about going home. There will be a drawdown of some of the US personnel, sometime, but there will be a US presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Why? Because there is still a power vacuum, with no united and effective national government in place. And because ISIS has not been vanquished, but is merely going to ground. They will resurface at opportune times, whether in Iraq or Syria... or the Netherlands... or the USA!

I said "American-led" in the first sentence to emphasize that the US is not alone! In 2003, America's gallant ally, Canada, decided to take a pass on Iraq. Apparently the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien asked itself what the point of the mission was, and decided discretion was the better part of valour. A couple of years later, to repair relations with their disgruntled neighbours, the Canucks joined in the invasion of Afghanistan. After 160 troops lost their lives, the Canadians pulled out, leaving the US holding the Afghan bag.

But that was OK (they said) because they'd changed their mind and would send a token force to Iraq instead, to help with training and, like, you know... anything that didn't involve more body bags being repatriated. No more motorcades along the "Highway of Heroes", please! And more than a decade later, the Canucks are still there, working with the American forces to bring peace, order and good government to the shithole that is Iraq. Isn't that wonderful?

How appropriate, then, that Canuck Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan (a Sikh person) and Diplomat of the Year (2018 -- look it up) Chrystia Freeland (the one not wearing a turban) picked yesterday to announce that Canadian armed forces, almost 200 strong (!), will stay in Iraq for another two years... like it or not. That should come as a great relief to the US military. What would the "Coalition of the Willing" be without Canadians?! What do Canadian voters think of this exercise in peacekeeping and nation-building, and other initiatives of Just In Trudeau's Gliberal government? We'll see in October.

Further reading: The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, by George Packer. Farrar Strauss & Giroux, New York, 2005. Mr Packer's thesis is that President Bush II and his advisers (Hello! Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) had no idea what they were getting into when they pressed ahead with the invasion of Iraq even though Saddam posed no threat to the USA or even his Gulf neighbours, and no plan whatever for stabilizing and rebuilding the shithole once the invasion was over. And remember, he wrote this book in 2005. Things only got worse after that. Where and when will it all end?!

40 Republicans call on POTUS to remove "gay protection" from USMCA

Negotiations to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), dragged on for well over a year before culminating this fall in a new US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA). The problem was the insistence of Canada's progressive, feminist Prime Minister Just In Trudeau, that any new agreement be a model of liberal ideology, putting social justice and the progressive agenda ahead of business and prosperity.

Mr Socks sent his lead negotiator, a former journalist named Chrystia Freeland, to the meetings with a shopping list of "non-negotiable demands" including new policies on climate change, gender equity, indigenous rights and other issues largely irrelevant to free trade, including (of course) measures to advance the liberal pro-queer agenda and protect "gay rights".

The USA and Mexico finally tired of being nagged about these non-issues and concluded an agreement on their own. See "Payback for the Lady in Red - Trump set to stick it to Canada", WWW 28/8/18.

Faced with the prospect of being cut loose, the Canucks caved on a couple of the real issues -- the auto sector and supply management in their dairy industry -- and the new USMCA (aka NAFTA v2) was hastily signed. Cue sighs of relief in Ottawa and a certain amount of behind-the-hand snickering in Washington and Mexico City.

As a sop to the Canadian snowflakes, the new agreement includes a pledge that all three countries will support "policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, including with regard to pregnancy, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, gender identity." Now that they've gotten around to reading the fine print, dozens of Republican lawmakers have noticed this clause and, on Friday, pronounced themselves unhappy with it.

According to POLITICO, 40 conservative congresspeople [Ed., is that what we're supposed to call them now?] have signed their names to a letter to President Trump urging him not to sign the agreement unless that language is removed.

Among the signatories are House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), a member of the Ways and Means Committee. The coalition said the United States "has the right to decide when, whether and how to tackle issues of civil rights, protected classes and workplace rights" as a sovereign nation.

"A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy," the letter continues. "It is especially inappropriate and insulting to our sovereignty to needlessly submit to social policies which the United States Congress has so far explicitly refused to accept."

Another signatory, Republican Doug Lamborn, has expressed concern congressional approval for USMCA could set a precedent “for activist courts” and he said in a statement Friday that Trump needed to remove the “troubling language … adopted behind the scenes.”

Before it can be put into effect, the new deal must be approved by Congress, but Friday's letter suggests POTUS could lose some Republican support for the agreement unless changes are made. In an interview with POLITICO, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) referred to "troubling language...adopoted behind the scenes" and said "This is language that is going to cause a lot of people to reconsider their support of the trade agreement, and to the point that it may endanger the passage of the trade agreement unless something is done."

Walt agrees completely. The mere suggestion that America should base its labour and related policies on the liberal model lwhich is failing spectatularly in Sweden, the United Kingdom and, yes, Canada is nothing short of ridiculous. Let Americans -- and only Americans -- decide how to run the US of A. If Canada (and Mexico) want to play in the American league, they're going to have to play by American league rules!

Further reading (and viewing): "CBC stunned by American prof's criticism of Chrystia Freeland", WWW 9/9/18. Includes video.