🔴 THE SIGNAL
Seventy days before the July 1 deadline, the USMCA is not one negotiation — it is two, moving at entirely different speeds.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer flew to Mexico City last week. Talks are live, bilateral, and concentrated: rules of origin in autos, energy market access, and disciplines on nonmarket inputs. Mexico is at the table. The conversation is hard, but it is happening.
Canada is a different story. Ambassador-level communications have reportedly stalled since fall 2025. Prime Minister Mark Carney said this week what was previously only whispered in Ottawa's briefing rooms: that Canada's once-strong economic ties to the United States have become a structural weakness that must be corrected. Carney named a $1 trillion investment plan contingent on USMCA clarity — then, in the same breath, launched a formal diversification strategy away from the US.
The three-nation framework is under stress it was not designed to absorb. The risks of a bifurcated North Am…
