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There's a New NAFTA in Town

Experts Duncan Wood, Laura Dawson, and Phil Levy join Deep Dish to discuss what's in the new NAFTA agreement and its significance on the global economy.
A sign marking the US-Mexico border, with semi trucks driving in the background Play Podcast
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President Trump announced a new trade deal with Mexico to replace NAFTA, and called on Canada to join the deal or risk being left out. On this week's Deep Dish, Mexico expert Duncan Wood, Canada expert Laura Dawson, and US trade economist Phil Levy analyze the new deal and lay out what could happen next.

Brian Hanson: This is Deep Dish on Global Affairs, going beyond the headlines and critical global issues. I'm Brian Hanson and today we're talking about the new NAFTA agreement that President Trump announced this week. And to help us understand what's in this agreement and what the significance is, we are welcoming back the council's own Phil Levy, who is a former White House trade economist. Welcome Phil, good to have you back.

Phil Levy: Thank you.

Brian Hanson: Also for our Canada expert, we have Laura Dawson, who is the director of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute. Welcome, Laura.

Laura Dawson: Thank you.

Brian Hanson: And for our Mexican expert, we have Duncan Wood, who is the director of the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute. Good to have you on Duncan.

Duncan Wood: Thanks for having me.

Brian Hanson: So as we all know, this week, President Trump announced the new trade deal with Mexico that he said was to replace the current North America Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA. And then he called Canada to join the deal by Friday or risk being left out entirely. What we want to do is unpack what this really is about and what its implications are for Mexico, the US, Canadian economies, and of course the folks living in those countries.

President Trump has from the very beginning said that the US has been taken advantage of in trade deals and that he wants to use the power of the US economy and the threat of trade action in order to leverage better deals. And one of the first ones he queued up was NAFTA. So I want to start with and maybe I can start with you Phil, if that's the strategy, what did he get? Are there major things that he was able to achieve in this negotiation with Mexico?

Phil Levy: I would say no. I think that in many cases from the standpoint of US economic welfare, it was sometimes a step backward where we saw things. The headline is in the autos sector where they tightened rules of origin. This is the definition of what counts as a North American good. We get into the weeds pretty quickly. But the basic idea is it used to be 62.5% North American content. They've tried to raise that up to 75%. They've tried to put in requirements that a certain percentage 40% to 45% be made with labor that was earning an average of $16 an hour. There are lots of devils in the details there.

But it's not clear that, that's going to do much to help average workers. There's real questions whether companies can go around that. There's a whole series of other changes. It depends a little bit what you want to compare it to. If you compare it to the NAFTA of the early 90s, then there's some serious changes. If you compare it to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which included the US, Canada, and Mexico, then the changes look less important.

Brian Hanson: So Duncan, let me bring you into this discussion. From the Mexican perspective, what are the most important aspects of this deal?

Duncan Wood: I mean, first of all, it's vital Of course that Mexico got to a deal. I mean, they felt as though they were in a very vulnerable position. They feel as though they were up against the clock in terms of the end of the Penny Network administration, beginning of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration. And so getting to a deal was it was a huge achievement on their part, or at least their best selling in that way.

The second point is that whilst the 40% to 45% of content that now has to come from workers who make more than $16 an hour, seems as though that's bad for Mexico. In fact, Mexico rarely has more than 60% of a vehicle being produced in its territory, and so they should be absolutely fine with that. I mean, the preliminary research shows that most of the vehicles that they produce will be protected under those rules.

One of the biggest achievements I think was, for them was getting securing ongoing access for agricultural goods into the US market, in particular perishable goods. And that was something that was politically very sensitive for them. And then of course, although we're not looking at a final deal yet because of course we have to wait and see what Canada adds to the negotiations. But the agreement on the part of Mexico and the United States to change the content of the sunset clause. So rather than being a five-year sunset clause, is now a 16-year sunset clause with a six-year review. That really does provide much greater investor certainty which is one of the things that Mexico of course was terrified of losing. And whilst I'm on that subject, on ISDS chapter 11. This is very, very important that-

Brian Hanson: And ISDS means what for our listeners who might not know?

Duncan Wood: Investor-State Dispute Settlement.

Brian Hanson: Thank you.

Duncan Wood: So, this was one of the critical chapters of the original NAFTA for Mexico because it guaranteed investors that they would be treated fairly in Mexico that they would not have their belongings expropriated or that the Mexican government would not engage in actions tantamount to expropriation. Now the new ISDS language is different but they have preserved the strongest protections for sectors such as energy and telecommunications. Those are where you really have very high fixed investments.

So I think that from the point of view the Mexicans, they did achieve some wins there. But as many of us have said this week, until you get Canada into the deal then really it doesn't count for very much. Because I don't see that this deal is workable on a bilateral basis, either economically or politically.

Brian Hanson: So I'm going to bring Phil in, in just a second. But as I listened to you go through that list of things from a Mexico perspective, almost all of them sound like they're basically defensive, not wanting to lose things as opposed to really creating new trade opportunities either for Mexico or within the North American context. Is that a fair summary?

Duncan Wood: I mean, I think that we can say that Mexico is a TPP signature. And so the language which is coming on NAFTA modernization is positive for Mexico. Does it open up enormous new opportunities for Mexican companies? I don't see those at the current time, but it should spur on overall levels of investment in the region and in particular in Mexico. So that modernization, that bringing up to date of a 20th-century trade agreement to a 21st-century trade agreement is a positive thing for Mexico.

But I mean, your comment, your question, is it entirely defensive? A lot of it has been defensive because that's really the position that the Mexicans have been placed in.

Brian Hanson: Terrific, and I want to bring Laura and Canada in, in just a second. But we've got two questions from Deep Dish listeners put into our Facebook group that I want to ask. And one is Jake Ekdahl asked, "Will the election of López Obrador have any effect on future negotiations?" Duncan you talked about trying to get this deal done before he came to power. The fact that he's coming in that he has expressed concerns about issues of economic equity and all, is his election going to shape the future of what emerges here?

Duncan Wood: I mean, it already has. I mean we're seeing extraordinary cooperation and coordination between the Enrique Peña Nieto team. I mean that's the official Mexican negotiating team, and the representatives of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in particular, the guy that he's named to be his chief NAFTA negotiator, Jesus Seade. And Seade actually played a very, very important role last weekend. You may have heard that there were a lot of rumors going around that Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not want to have an energy chapter in the new NAFTA. That he didn't want anything to interfere with his plans for the Mexican energy sector. He is opposed to the 2013 constitution reform which opens up Mexico to foreign and private investment in oil and gas and electricity.

Anyway, those rumors, it turns out, where we're at least partially true because Seade met with Lighthizer and apparently persuaded Lighthizer that whilst energy to be covered in the NAFTA, they didn't want any language in the new version of the agreement that would confirm the energy reform of 2013. That would really tie the hands of the new president if he wants to make changes to that legislative and regulatory framework. And so whilst those investor protections that I mentioned a little while ago are there, there is no language, explicit language in the bilateral agreement that celebrates the reform of 2013.

Brian Hanson: It's interesting. One last question before we move to Canada. Michael Horner asked and I don't know if he asks it just or seriously, "Will Mexican beer and alcohol drop or increase in price under the New Deal?" Do you happen to know Duncan or Phil what the implication would be for Mexican alcohol products here in the US?

Duncan Wood: I mean my understanding is that as long as we have the continued free flow of basic agricultural products between the countries. Mexico depends upon importing malted wheat for its beer production. And so, any Mexican beer that you drink here in the United States, even if it was actually produced in Mexico, has a pretty significant US content already. And as long as you keep that free flow of products going across the borders, then I think that the price of beer should remain the same.

Now, of course, if there is greater uncertainty in the outcome of this negotiation, if we don't actually get to a deal, then you could, of course, the greater pressure on the Mexican peso, which would lower the price of Mexican beer here in the United States. But let's hope that we don't get to that situation.

Brian Hanson: Terrific. Laura, you've been very patient. Let me bring you in, as the Canadians have during this negotiation in reality. So obviously the Trump administration made an explicit decision to negotiate with Mexico and then come to Canada with a very short timeline as a strategy to put pressure on Canada to come to an agreement. Could you help us understand, what position is candidate in and what's its strategy going to be in response to the situation the Trump administration setup?

Laura Dawson: Sure, thank you. I mean, I think there are two different dynamics going on right now with respect to Canada's response and where it is. Definitely in the realm of real politics, there has been an attempt to sort of put Canada over a barrel and say, take it or leave it. But at the same time, it also was, probably helpful for the negotiations as a whole for US and Mexico to go up and talk about the automotive Rules of Origin deal because they are the major protagonists in that. They have the major axes to grind. And Canada frankly could probably accept any deal that Mexico and the US could work out because the Canadian dynamic is so similar to the United States. So that was probably fine.

The other things that they worked out when I look at the US Tier Fact Sheets, seem pretty vague. I'm not sure that there's much meat on the bones or if there's meat on the bones, I'm not seeing it released in what we've seen so far. But what we do see is that Canada could probably live with much of what is there. There's some mention for example, of supply management, but it actually says country should be permitted to keep supply management programs as long as they're not overly trade-distorting.

Brian Hanson: And what is a supply management program just for folks who might not be familiar with that term? What does that mean?

Laura Dawson: Oh, sorry. Supply Management. So that's the program that Canada uses to maintain a relatively protectionist stance around its dairy program. The US tends to use subsidies, different programs to support farmers on the front end. Canada distorts prices at the trade end. It has a similar effect.

So President Trump has been quite pointed about his desire to take down Canadian supply management and get Wisconsin farmers back into the Canadian market. But when I read the US Tier Fact Sheet it's really pretty oblight. There's a couple of other things in there like a change in the intellectual property regime for internet violations going from something called notice and notice to notice and takedown. That means service providers who find violators on their systems instead of just repeatedly sending them notes saying please stop violating copyright, are actually have to take more punitive actions.

But really there's nothing that it is in these fact sheets that looks like a really hard stop to me. At the same time Canada has been very clear that it wants a broad comprehensive improvement to the current NAFTA conditions. As Phil says, this is not the economic welfare outputs of this agreement, or what we see so far, are really pretty minimal. We know that the automotive deal for example, is going to raise prices for cars in North America. We don't know if it's going to be a little or by a lot. But it's got kind of the interventionist and managed trade elements that would make a Soviet planner jealous. Be very, very hard to maintain and it's going to be a regime that is not competitively friendly for North America. And so is that going to be Canada's battle to fight over the coming days and hours, or is Canada just going to focus on the issues where it got a strong interest and let US business, US Congress fight the battles for a more competitive trade-friendly deal?

Brian Hanson: So it sounds like there's, given what we know so far about the agreement, that this doesn't create huge problems for Canada. That there aren't a lot of critical issues currently backing Canada into much of a corner substantively. Is that fair?

Laura Dawson: Yeah, I would agree to that. The sorts of concessions that Canada will have to make to get this deal, none of them are sort of mixed metaphor deal breakers necessarily. But Canada is going to want to get something in exchange. It's probably going to have to make some concessions on dairy. It's going to want to have something that it can show in return. It's going to have to make some concessions in what's called low-value shipments across the border. It's going to have to do a few other things that it won't be inclined to do.

So it's got to see that there's benefits there. And I'm not sure that those benefits have really been proven yet.

Brian Hanson: Terrific. And of course, trade is always got an important domestic political component for every country. And another Facebook Deep Dish Facebook group participant Christopher Divine says, "How does Trudeau handle these developments considering he has an election coming up in the near future?" What is that calculation for him even if there is not a whole lot at stake substantively necessarily, the perception of him getting pushed around by the US? Is that a concern?

Laura Dawson: I think the biggest concern for Canada in substantive terms is actually the trade uncertainty. As long as we are in these negotiations that are punctuated by national security tariffs and trade wars and Trump tweets, et cetera. As long as that continues, investors are keeping their hands in their pockets and producers are limiting their production. So Canada and Mexico are really taking some pain as a result of this uncertainty. So I think on the one hand, if Trudeau can get a satisfactory deal done, he's going to bring a measure of certainty and investment back to Canada and that's to the good.

At the same time, the polemic surrounding trading in Canada is quite a bit different from the United States. There are really no strong anti-trade voices in Canada. People recognize that when you're a country of 32 million people stretched across the second-largest landmass in the world, you need to trade with your neighbors because you can't do it all yourself. So Trudeau is actually looking pretty good. In fact, the Charlevoix G-7 attacks from the White House actually shored up political support for Justin Trudeau.

So he's looking pretty good. The only danger that he's got is over these really focused sensitive domestic sectors like dairy. We see the parties in Canada really forming up along fault lines for the dairy industry. Pro con, not sure what's happening.

Brian Hanson: I think Laura raises an excellent point about the sort of desire and need for certainty commercially, so you can get investors. I think that's actually one of the really big questions that hangs over the outcome this week, is does this deliver that sort of certainty? Because in the past, if you look at for example, the steel protection in the George W. Bush administration, when he put that on, Canada and Mexico were exempt. The thought was we have NAFTA and that sort of protects them. That has not been the approach of this administration. We've seen with steel and aluminum tariffs that they, not initially but eventually, were applied to Canada and Mexico. And it'll be a real question what happens with those and what happens with autos, which are sort of looming on the horizon as another national security tariff to see whether or not this sort of a NAFTA agreement if it's reached, thereby exempts them.

And you actually had testimony before Congress where administration officials said they were asked why are you attacking Canada? Canada's our friend. How does Canada Post national security threat? And they kind of explained there was really an economic motive to this. That Canada is such an important trading partner, that if you exempted Canada from those things, you wouldn't be delivering the protection to the domestic industry that you would want it to deliver.

So it's not entirely clear to me at least from these negotiations, how that's all going to be reconciled. And it turns out to play a very important role in terms of whether, for example, these new auto Rules of Origin matter because if you don't have say national security tariffs, then the sort of penalty for sending in a car that does not meet the requirements, it's just a 2.5% tariff, it's not very big. If instead you're facing a 25% national security tariff, that's a whole nother story.

Laura Dawson: Yeah I'd like to get just Phil's opinion on that. It seems to me that the 2.5% as you say, it's not much of a penalty so why would you use NAFTA benefits at all and [inaudible 00:20:12] is doubling UTO. Do you think Phil that he said that President Trump will actually use national security tariffs on a continuing basis at 25% to hold those benefits in place and won't that launch a trade war between the US and the rest of the world and make it very difficult for the US ever to export vehicles?

Phil Levy: I think it's a very serious concern. I think the Trump administration used their experience with steel and aluminum as proof of concept that the President clearly liked the idea of terrifying other countries, as he puts it, and he was warned that stock markets would crash, his popularity would plummet and none of that happened. His popularity is about where it was, stock markets have gone up. And so proof of concept, you move on and they've said. They want to get auto tariffs done before the midterms, and they have a fundamental choice, which is if you do them while exempt ... this is not just on completed autos, by the way, this is autos and auto parts. If you do this on ... if you exclude Mexico and Canada from that, you're excluding an awful lot of our North American auto trades. Then you don't get the impact you want.

You're quite right. If you do this, yes, you make the North American auto industry, you seriously damage its competitiveness, and you heighten an already existing trade war with much of the rest of the world.

Brian Hanson: So Phil, I want to pick up on something that you wrote recently in your Forbes column this week. You call this President Trump's NAFTA charade. And you said that perhaps the conversation like we're having right now unpacking what actually is in this deal is the wrong conversation, that there could be a different thing going on politically here. What do you have in mind?

Phil Levy: Yeah, I was just being polite earlier. I didn't want to pretend that this was the wrong conversation. I think the trick is, if you look at this deal, we've all been taking this very seriously as an attempt to sort of rewrite NAFTA, which people have been calling for, for years. And taking seriously the President's claims that the old NAFTA potentially was hurting the American economy. I don't think there's much evidence for that. But that's been his claim and he had to replace it with something really new and different. The problem is, if you take that seriously, there's a huge number of puzzles here.

So, for example, if the old NAFTA was terrible, why do you come up with something where we're sort of scrounging around trying to find any real difference and you're basically implementing the new thing and just calling it new and improved but the really very little change. The other thing is there are enormous procedural hurdles to getting this done. That the real deadline for getting this to be considered by the current sitting US Congress was back in May. They missed that deadline.

So if this is going to be heard, it's going to be heard by the next Congress. What does the next Congress demand in trade? We don't know. They haven't been elected yet. There are serious questions about whether the administration has followed the rules that the Trade Promotion Authority law sets out. Now, some of that came when they started talking about doing a bilateral with Mexico, which would seem a clear violation since they never notified bilateral talks. They only notified NAFTA talks. But it also comes up that you had Resentative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, who's a ranking number, I believe of the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee say, "That will also require that Congress be consulted on these things. And the house advisory committee and negotiations hasn't been consulted since these talks began."

So there's all kinds of ... and add to that, if you look and say where are the votes going to come for in Congress for this? The administration seems to have done just enough to potentially annoy almost everyone in Congress and you've had prominent democratic congressman like Sandy Levin come out and say, "I don't see democratic votes for this." You've had key Republican leaders say that they either don't like intellectual property provisions. They don't like scaling back the investor state Dispute Settlement, ISDS, stuff that we talked about. So it doesn't seem that they actually have the votes.

That was where I raised the idea that this all looks deeply, deeply puzzling. If you take it seriously as a move to revise trade terms. It actually makes a lot of sense if the ultimate goal is have a political prop us not only for the 2018 midterms, where the President can say I promised to redo NAFTA and I did. But then in some ways, it's almost better for him if it doesn't pass through Congress because then he can say, let's presume for the moment that it's a democratically run House of Representatives that stops it. He can come out and say, "Well, look, I was going to fix this until the democrats stopped me. So I had this wonderful trade deal. You'll never know how wonderful it was because it never got implemented. But I would have fixed everything except for those democrats in swampy Washington."

Brian Hanson: So Duncan, let me bring you in on this. If that plays out like that, whether by intention or what unfolds is that they're not votes in Congress in order to pass the New Deal, what's the implication for Mexico? Is Mexico concerned about that? Is that a happy outcome for them? What would that mean?

Duncan Wood: So this all really depends upon whether or not the rumors that would be circulating in Washington the past couple of days are true and whether is President Trump actually going to notify a termination or withdrawal from NAFTA. If he does that in order to get a new deal, then or does it simultaneously then that creates all kinds of questions about the timing Can you do two things simultaneously, et cetera?

And if he does, that throws Mexico into a very, very difficult position. Because I think that most of us would recognize that this bilateral deal is by no means a replacement for a trilateral deal. It's obviously suboptimal. So if there is no agreement with Canada, and Trump terminates or issues trying to over 2205 to withdraw, then Mexico is really, really hurt by this.

And so, if Congress is also log jammed on this question, so a new agreement can't be issued, can't be ratified, then I think it's an exaggeration to say catastrophic consequences for Mexico. But certainly, it creates enormous uncertainty. And, Mexico will be scrambling around trying to come up with some alternative solution for this. And it's absolutely the worst nightmare I think, for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that he would come into office on December the first inheriting a Mexican economy that no longer has the guarantees of NAFTA.

Brian Hanson: And Laura how's a scenario like this look from the Canadian viewpoint?

Laura Dawson: I'm going to go over to Phil's side a little bit in the ... I hate to be cynical, but this agreement will never be as good for Donald Trump as it was on Monday. Monday was the pinnacle of how great this new deal was and as every detail emerges, as every potential concession and balance and measure comes forward, he's going to have a less and less make America great friendly deal. So, I think his preferences are probably to have a deal, have the elements of a deal or have the deal somehow get either rejected by Congress so he can say, "Hey, I tried to have this great deal but those jerks in Canada or those jerks in Congress prevented me from making good on the promise that I made you." I think that's a real possibility.

I'm less convinced that he's going to pull the plug on the NAFTA. I think in particular the US farm sector has been very, very influential in just putting the brakes on that idea. I think anybody who likes the NAFTA owes a debt to agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue because he has really put that egg face forward and said, "You cut our supply lines, you cut off our access to foreign buyers and US agriculture literally would weathers up and dies." So I don't see pulling the plug. If he pulls the plug then I don't see that he would be able to complete that action because of things that Congress might do or even court actions.

So Canada is going to continue to walk up the pathway towards a new NAFTA. It knows what issues are. It knows what its objectives are. It's going to try to hold a middle ground but it's not a comfortable position. It's not getting any joy or pleasure out of this uncertainty because again that is continuing to cost Canadians money. We see drops in GDP, drops in investment, drops in export capacity. And that really makes no one happy in Canada.

Phil Levy: I would just weigh in. I partially agree with Laura on these things. So I partially agree with Laura in that it would be very, very costly for the agricultural sector and that may possibly be a deterrent for the President. On the other hand, he has plowed ahead with a number of tariffs both against China and with steel and aluminum where you had important US sectors perhaps not quite at the level of agriculture, but still important sector saying this is really damaging. Be careful, please don't do this. And he has been undeterred. I would note that there is talk of, the one that we'd be fairly confident is if the president tries to terminate NAFTA, you will have ample legal battles. That there is an enormous dispute over what authority he has in this area.

Fundamentally because NAFTA as it exists in the United States is a law that was passed by Congress and it was signed by President Clinton. And normally presidents are not able to undo a law with the stroke of a pen. So exactly how much they can do is probably something that will be worked out in courts.

Brian Hanson: Duncan, did you want to get in on this?

Duncan Wood: I mean, I think that what we're seeing right now is that, in the reaction in Washington to the bilateral deal, I think it is very telling. We've heard very few voices coming forward and saying, "Oh, what a fantastic deal this is." We've heard quite a number of congressional voices coming forward and saying, "It's very important, it's vital, it's essential that Canada is part of this." So, I think that we know how Congress feels about this and certainly in terms of the termination of NAFTA, we've seen already how impassioned congressmen and women have been about that issue.

So, it's something that I think a lot of people up on Capitol Hill really wish they weren't dealing with just before midterm elections. But, they recognize the urgency on the part of the administration because of the possibility of a democrat win in November. And but I think that you've got legislators as well as lobby groups, and private business ready to mobilize immediately if this happens.

Brian Hanson: so as we close I want to get the three of you to get your opinions on the same question which is, we are going to, with an issue with so much at stake, we're going to have tweets, we're going to have front-page stories, press conferences that can be very distracting and what I would like each of you to share is what should people pay most attention to in order to understand what is unfolding and what the implications are going to be on economies in the region. Going beyond all the spectacle, what's the most important thing to pay attention to? I'll start with you, Phil.

Phil Levy: Well, there's going to be a lot of us are working out what the details mean. Fortunately, under Trade Promotion Authority, there's a requirement that the US International Trade Commission study this and come out with an estimate. I imagine it will show effects that are fairly minimal of all that. So economically, you'll want to look at those details and see what happens. In terms of whether this will happen, you should look at this like you would look at any other major piece of legislation. Who's lining up in favor, who's lining up against it? Does it have 218 votes in the House and we'll get 51 votes in the Senate? It's not at all clear to me that it will have that now but we have to see how it plays out.

Brian Hanson: And Laura, what should we be paying attention to?

Laura Dawson: Well I think and I am the worst offender but we need to get our heads out of the Twitter-sphere, look up from our telephones and really consider the implications of a world without NAFTA or a world with the new NAFTA for our own jobs and livelihoods and communities. One of the problems with NAFTA is in fact that it's become so embedded in our commercial systems, our legal systems that most people don't know to what extent they're trading between Toronto and Chicago and [inaudible 00:33:36]. They don't know how embedded their companies might be and they don't know what the real implications with NAFTA and without NAFTA might be.

So rather than getting caught up in the political theater and there's so much of it, to just look around at communities' job supply chains and say, where are we, what do we need, what kind of future do we want?

Brian Hanson: And Duncan what's your take?

Duncan Wood: So it's actually quite similar to Laura's, which is that, we can talk all we like about new permutations of bilateral, trilateral trade deals. But what we can't forget is the underlying infrastructure of production in the region. We are three deeply integrated economies. And if you try to build barriers on that, to that infrastructure to the free flow of goods within that infrastructure, then that has enormous costs. And we all lose from that. All three countries, pretty much every sector in this region, and of course, North America and each of the individual countries vis-à-vis the world. North America is an incredibly competitive region because of the integration, not just through trade, but the integration of manufacturing production systems. And the more that we can free up that free flow of, that flow of goods between the three nations, the better. I think that we've seen some positive advances in terms of trade facilitation in recent years. And even in the bilateral trade deal between Mexico and the United States on Monday.

But, we still have a long way to go. It's things that we've been talking about for years about modernizing the agreement. And I think that, that's where we should be focusing on is how do we make North America even more competitive than it is today?

Brian Hanson: So Duncan Wood, director of the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, thanks so much for being here today.

Duncan Wood: Thank you.

Brian Hanson: And Laura Dawson, director of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute. It's been good to have you on too.

Laura Dawson: Thank you.

Brian Hanson: And our very own Phil Levy, Senior Fellow for the global economy. Thanks for being here Phil.

Phil Levy: Good to be with you.

Brian Hanson: It's a conversation that I think we will have again as events continue to unfold. Thank you all.

And thank you for tuning in to this episode of Deep Dish. As a reminder, the opinions you heard today belong to the people who've expressed them and not the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. You can find our show under Deep Dish on Global Affairs wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like the show, please let us know by tapping the subscribe button so that you can get each new episode. If you think you know someone who would enjoy today's episode, please tap the share button and send it to them. If you have any questions about anything you heard today, or if you want to submit questions for upcoming guests, please join our Facebook group, Deep Dish on Global Affairs. This episode of Deep Dish was produced by Evan Fazio and associate producer Emily Baker. Our audio engineer is Andy Czarnecki. I'm Brian Hanson and we'll be back soon with another slice of Deep Dish.

About the Experts
Phil Levy
Chief Economist, Flexport
Phil Levy
Phil Levy is a former senior fellow of global economy at the Council. Currently, he's the Chief Economist for Flexport.
Phil Levy
Laura Dawson
Director, Wilson Center's Canada Institute
Duncan Wood
Director, Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Brian Hanson
Former Vice President, Studies
Brian Hanson headshot
Brian Hanson served as the vice president of studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He managed the Council's research operations and hosted the Council's weekly podcast, Deep Dish on Global Affairs.
Brian Hanson headshot