Thank you for your question.
It's sometimes difficult to get outside the wonderful things that you write in your op-eds. Yes, I worry about “hopium”, the belief that we're playing a game that we can deal with, just like I hope for the Blue Jays, but I just don't know. However, the Blue Jays have a better chance right now than we do in trade, and the reason is that we're playing the wrong game. We're playing a game in which we believe the Americans are going to follow the rules that we worked on with them for so many years.
We built something together, but no longer do we have trade monogamy. We have something that's transactional, and this is “whatever is good was last night”. That's what's going on. There's no marital therapy. We have no dispute resolution, no way of making this work, so we need to really rethink this.
The one difference I have with Ms. Payne—and only one that I want to point out—is that chapter 34 doesn't mean we have to wait until the end of the CUSMA review for CUSMA to be ended. CUSMA could end at any point. The President can end it. There are some constitutional issues. I've been having discussions with my constitutional colleagues at the New York Law School as to whether it's appropriate for the President to do it. However, the President ended the treaty with India without going to Congress, and I suspect that he would end the treaty with Canada also without going to Congress. Maybe we'll go to the courts, but we would be stuck for six months or with no treaty.
I don't think we're prepared, and that's what I worry about. I have given specific suggestions, in my brief and in other writings, as to what we can do to do better. I am an optimist. I think we can do better, and I think this committee can make a big difference. That's why I'm here.