[didibus]

Right, and such a concession to be agreed on by Canada would require an equally beneficial concession made by the U.S. no?

I guess I only see 3 scenarios for such a trade agreement.

1) Both parties try to predict future economic growth. So maybe US believes IP protection for drugs would have a huge impact on their economy. But Canada thinks they're wrong, and that they'll make more gains from tax free dairy exports to the US that it will trump the loses from drug IPs. This is what I hope is happening. In which case, whoever can predict best wins.

2) This whole thing is driven by corruption. And the deals are not beneficial to Canada at large, but to special interests within it to which the deal is beneficial, even though it won't be for the average tax payer.

3) The US is using military threat or similar kind of forceful threat in order for Canada to just adopt laws that benefit the US only.

Is there something else at play here I can't see?

[pyre]

> Right, and such a concession to be agreed on by Canada would require an equally beneficial concession made by the U.S. no?

The way that Trump likes to negotiate that's not necessarily the case. He may think that he can get huge concessions without giving anything in return by just "playing hardball" and issuing threats to terminate negotiations if they don't go his way.