Une évaluation de l’impact des politiques de l’administration Bush sur les exportations canadiennes dans le contexte de l’Accord de libre-échange nord-américain

Abstract

Viewed from Canada, which conducts 70-80 percent of its foreign trade with the United States, the evolution of commercial flows is a major component in assessing the George W. Bush presidency. This study evaluates the impact of trade agreements on Canadian exports to the US, with a particular emphasis on the effects of measures taken by the Bush administration. We begin with an overview of the evolution of trade flows between Canada and its North American partners. The second section examines the establishment of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The third section examines the more recent period, which started with the tragic events of September 11, 2001. We evaluate the effects of US security policies adopted in the wake of these events, which caused the economic dimension of the North American partnership to be in part subordinated to the security dimension. The last section presents our econometric analyses of the impacts of trade agreements and of border security measures on Canada’s exports to the United States. On the whole, we observe that the FTA and NAFTA have had a significant positive impact on Canada’s exports and that this positive effect was maintained during the Bush years. Nevertheless, the tightening of security controls at the US borders has represented the equivalent of a tariff on Canadian exports and a sizable burden for Canadian firms.

Keywords

• United States
• Canada
• Bush George W.
• free trade
• North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
• international trade