OTTAWA — Before Donald Trump‘s second term in the White House, there was a rough sequence to Canada’s trade wars with the United States. Things got bad. Things got tense. Then, through an agreement that each country believed was mutually beneficial, things cooled down.
This was the case when trade tensions preceded the signing of 1965’s Canada-United States Automotive Products Agreement — also known as the “Auto Pact” — which helped establish an integrated car manufacturing industry across the border. It happened again when protectionism gave way to free trade after the hard-fought federal election campaign of 1988.
