Playing the Trap: Team Canada during the first NAFTA renegotiations

In a moment of rising neo-mercantilism, smaller countries must confront rent-seeking powers on their terms. Here, the trade negotiation literature suggests that national all-purpose coalitions can be a detriment in international negotiations. However, this often assumes these coalitions are merely defensive strategies. What if these coalitions are equal parts offensive and defensive? This theory-building paper interrogates one example in the Team Canada NAFTA renegotiation strategy. Team Canada represented a spanning coalition of Canadian industry, labor and civil society working in concert. Drawing on Putnam’s two-level game, I observe Team Canada as both a defensive and offensive “Trap” strategy. It sought to eliminate internal rifts that could be manipulated and aggressively lobby influential American actors to isolate the Trump administration. This process tracing research draws from original semi-structured interviews with Canadian and American trade negotiation participants, secondary accounts from papers of record, and committee witness testimony.