November 12, 2017 — CENTREVILLE, Nova Scotia — This lobster factory on a windswept bay in eastern Canada is so remote that its workers have to drive for miles just to get cellphone service. But Gidney Fisheries is truly global, with its lobsters landing on plates in Paris and Shanghai through trade agreements hammered out in far-off capitals.
Of late, these trade pacts have been shifting in the factory’s favor, giving it an advantage over its American competitors.
A new trade agreement between Canada and the European Union has slashed tariffs on imports of Canadian lobsters. That means more 747s filled with Christmas-red crustaceans will depart from Nova Scotia for European markets this winter — and more revenue will flow to Gidney Fisheries. The factory, which in the 1800s sent its lobsters to Boston by steamship, is flush with potential as it gains access to new markets and plans to increase its work force by roughly 50 percent, adding dozens of positions to its current payroll of around 85 workers.
“For us, free trade is a good thing,” said Robert MacDonald, the president of Gidney Fisheries, which processes 10,000 to 15,000 lobsters a day.
The Trump administration has adopted a skeptical view of trade deals, promising to scrap or renegotiate global agreements that it believes put American companies and workers at a disadvantage. Among them is the North American Free Trade Agreement, which the United States is trying to renegotiate. It will join its partners in the agreement, Canada and Mexico, for a fifth round of talks in Mexico City that officially begin on Friday.
Some trade experts, though, say America’s get-tough approach is dissuading foreign partners from jumping into talks. Other countries, like Canada, are forging ahead with their own trade deals as they balk at the tough terms the United States is demanding in its trade negotiations. Over the weekend, a group of 11 countries including Canada announced that they were committed to moving ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping multinational trade deal negotiated by the Obama administration.
Read the full story at the New York Times