Canada entered the free trade era warily. Many residents still have doubts about the 19-year-old Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. But most would rather live with it than lose it.
The continental market has become so highly integrated that it would be impossible to undo the free trade deal without wiping out millions of jobs and crippling the Canadian economy.
Canada sells 80 per cent of its exports to the U.S., reaping large annual trade surpluses. Last year's $96.5 billion surplus with the U.S. was more than enough to counterbalance the country's $43 billion trade deficit with the rest of the world.
Canadian companies buy more than half of their machinery and equipment in the U.S. Without American technology, they'd have trouble maintaining their competitive edge.
But south of the border, free trade has lost its allure. That sentiment is reflected in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
"The last thing we need is another trade agreement like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)," said John Edwards, the most protectionist of the contenders, at a meeting of the United Steelworkers last month.
"Like anything, NAFTA had some positives, but unfortunately had a lot of downsides," Hillary Clinton said at a forum sponsored by public-sector unions in June. "Some of the high-value work is going to Canada because of lower health-care costs."
Even Barack Obama, the most moderate of the front-runners, has said American workers need better protection. "When we negotiate trade deals, we've got to make sure there are strong labour and environmental provisions in those trade deals. They've got to be enforceable."
(The race for the Republican nomination has yet to come into focus. So far, free trade has not emerged as an issue.)
The presidential election is still 15 months away. The primaries haven't even begun. But with the Democrats coming on strong, Canadian exporters are nervous and trade analysts are warning that Americans are in an isolationist mood.
Daniel Schwanen, director of research at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, thinks everybody should calm down.
To begin with, he says, none of the Democratic front-runners is actually threatening to withdraw from NAFTA. All Clinton and Edwards are proposing to do is renegotiate the trade agreement to strengthen labour rights and environmental safeguards. That could work to Canada's benefit.
Moreover, Schwanen says, after a cursory cost-benefit analysis, any president would conclude that scrapping NAFTA would be a costly mistake. America gets 16 per cent of its crude oil from Canada and 12 per cent from Mexico. Cutting loose its two largest and most reliable energy suppliers, at a time of rising global demand, would jeopardize its productivity and way of life.
Even if the U.S. were to pull out of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, he points out, Canada would still be covered by its 1989 free trade deal with Washington.
"I'm not pessimistic," Schwanen says. "In fact, I think a new president who has promised to do something about NAFTA has an opportunity to fix it. It's quite a tired, old agreement."
He would like to see the pact updated to deal with the security concerns that have arisen since 9/11. He also thinks the three partners could work out a common approach to mergers and acquisitions. He believes NAFTA could be used to improve North America's dismal performance on climate change. And he points out other countries - Australia and New Zealand, for instance - have leapt ahead of their North American counterparts in tackling non-tariff trade barriers. "We could be a little more intelligent on services, research and development and regulatory issues."
Strip away the Democrats' campaign bluster, Schwanen says, and they're recognizing an obvious truth: Washington has to address the insecurity that pervades America's industrial heartland.
"NAFTA is not the be-all and the end-all," he says. "Let's reopen it for the better."