Josh O’Kane touches on a unique factor that will complicate & lengthen these negotiations; tweets in the night.

The complication in earlier years was that the Senate would try to extract further concessions after a draft treaty was concluded by the Executive Branch. This complication has been removed by the recent practice of the Executive Branch obtaining Senate commitment before negotiations formally begin that a resulting draft treaty will be voted on without amendment.

Now, however, we face the prospect that Trump will personally insert new issues, up-end positions agreed to by his own negotiators, etc. at any stage or at the conclusion of a draft agreement.  There is no constraint on such egocentric interventions.

Lengthy and turbulent negotiations will cast a long shadow over the Canadian economy.