A flip-flop like that would destroy any credibility we've built up over the past year as the Prime Minister zigzagged the world making trade deals. If we flip-flop like that, why would any partner out there in the world, particularly in the global south, trust us to have negotiations? That's number one.
Number two, I just don't think going deeper in the North American platform path is the right way for Canada, because it increases our dependence on a country. I'm very fond of the United States, very fond of Americans, but it would increase our dependence on a country that is not behaving in the way that it used to behave, and it has been doing this for a long time. We don't know what comes after President Trump, but the long-term trend is not good for Canada and is not good for our integration.
We need to diversify. It's a question of resilience. It's a question of sovereignty. It's actually a question of national security. If you go into decline, what kind of national security do you have if you have a weakening economy? What kind of national security do we have when a president, a single person and his officials, can weaponize trade and force concessions out of us? What kind of national security do we have when a president can tell the United Kingdom not to bring wind turbines in from China because they are going to spy on northern England, where the sheep are, or tells them not to let them build an embassy? What kind of national security are we going to have if we increase our dependence on a single nation?
I'm sorry to go off on a tangent like that. I'll leave it at that.