Union Boss Reassures Everyone That NAFTA Is Toast

With everyone weighing in on the ultimate fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement, it almost seems as if we’re cataloging their bets to see just how right or wrong they’ll be in the negotiatory aftermath. Considering there has been such a limited amount of progress on the trade talks, there honestly isn’t much else to do.

Suggesting that NAFTA is “is going to blow up in 2018,” Jerry Dias, president of the Canadian union Unifor, has planted his flag on the side of a total breakdown of the agreement. Unifor represents 23,500 Detroit Three auto workers living north of the border, plus some 16,000 working in the supply chain.

As a union leader, Dias is prone to hyperbolic statements. However, his insight into the situation runs a little deeper than most.

“I’ve been having unfettered access to those who make the decisions, but I’ve also had a complete green light, understood and sanctioned by the government, to say whatever the heck I feel like,” Dias told Automotive News in an extended interview. “It’s not as if they’re going to change my mind. But they understand that bringing in labor as part of the team is quite helpful.”

As a consultant for Canadian officials, Dias has had multiple meetings with Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, chief negotiator Steve Verheul, and other Canadian representatives. “I’m convinced that unless Donald Trump folds, which he won’t, then NAFTA is gone,” he said. “I am probably going to win more wine in 2018 than anyone in the history of wineries because I have bet every journalist in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. that NAFTA would not be re-signed by the end of 2017. I have to put in a wine cellar in my condo.”

Dias cited the contentious regional content requirements being pushed by the United States as the primary sticking point for Canada and Mexico. The 85-percent North American content requirement proposal (which includes a 50-percent U.S. content mandate) for all vehicles imported into the U.S. has received serious criticism from both countries and even automakers. The labor head also said Canada’s $37-an-hour average wage couldn’t hope to compete with Mexico’s $2-dollar-an-hour mean.

He expects trade relations to revert to preexisting U.S.-Canada agreements and doesn’t feel any other outcome was ever a serious possibility. “If we signed NAFTA in 2018 with a five-year sunset clause, who is going to make a major investment in 2020 knowing that it can blow up in three years? Nobody believes the United States wants an agreement,” Dias recalled once telling U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. “Once Canada and Mexico got the indication that the United States wasn’t serious about an agreement, it’s all done.”

“Nobody in Canada and Mexico wants to throw [Donald Trump] a victory party,” Dias said. “He’s inherently unpopular. They think he’s dangerous and foolish. For [Canadian Prime Minister] Trudeau, who’s riding pretty high in the polls, to be perceived as folding to Trump is politically damaging.”

NAFTA negotiations resume January 23rd in Montreal.

[Image: OFL Communications Department/ Flickr ( CC BY 2.0)]