Nafta Case Study

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The new U.S. Administration has laid out broad strokes of an economic plan consisting primarily of personal and corporate tax cuts, a large infrastructure plan, more inward-looking trade policies, and deregulation in the financial and energy sectors. If implemented, this plan could have large spillovers into Canada’s economy and public finances. Except possibly positive spillovers to the financial and energy sectors from deregulation and tax cuts, Canada could experience negative trade and tax spillovers that could reduce overall demand and growth potential, negatively impact the labor market, and decrease the tax base. Trade and tax spillovers would have significant impact as Canada is a small open economy reliant on trade with the U.S., its …show more content…

to maintain NAFTA. Benefits of doing so include reducing current Canada-U.S. trade policy uncertainty and sustaining existing trade benefits long term. Challenges involve potentially renegotiating key parts of NAFTA and harm from any pressured renegotiation that would set a precedent for future trade negotiations.
In addition to NAFTA, Canada should continue to diversify trading partnerships beyond the U.S. Diversification benefits include new trade opportunities and reduced risk from any single partnership. Potential drawbacks to gaining additional partners include increased political exposure and lengthy negotiations that would be more challenging than in the past due to a global socioeconomic context with increased protectionist sentiment.
To mitigate tax cut spillovers, Canada should act to maintain its competitive tax policy relative to the U.S. Competitive taxes are beneficial in attracting investment and skilled labor necessary for growth. They also play a role in keeping skilled workers in Canada and preventing a “brain drain” to the U.S. like the one seen in the 1990s attributed to U.S. growth, relatively lower U.S. taxes, and high Canada-U.S. mobility at the time. As any tax cuts must be balanced with fiscal stability, a potential challenge will be the need to broaden the tax base to support lower taxes which may necessitate significant immigration measures due to Canada’s low

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