See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source

The Americans claim Canada made last-minute changes that killed the trade deal. Ottawa says Washington did the same thing. The truth is that once negotiators started putting the details on paper, both sides discovered they didn’t agree on what had supposedly been settled.

LILLEY: Trade talks collapsed in fine print, and both sides say the other is to blame Back to video

Canadian officials entered Friday believing a deal was all but done. By midnight, the negotiations had collapsed.

Changes on autos were not the only reason Canada walked away from the trade deal. There were other changes that, as Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Saturday, made the deal unacceptable.

“The cumulative effect of US demands revealed the limits of their commitment to a true economic partnership,” Carney said.

Carney cited Canadian sovereignty on issues such as who we could have trade deals with and French-language policies. As with details on the auto front, the Americans are telling a different story, but with clarification, it becomes two different readings of the same events.

Add in some politics and some bluster, and you have the perfect recipe for talks falling apart.

As recently as Thursday, Canada’s team in Washington, led by Minister Dominic LeBlanc, were all smiles, telling any stakeholder who would........

© Edmonton Sun