Life after Nafta

With talks over the deal at loggerheads, Canada's oil industry is contemplating what comes next

The obituary for the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) hasn't yet been written, but Canada is coming to the realisation that the 24-year-old trade deal is all but dead. Despite marathon efforts to resuscitate the patient in Montreal this January, the corpse is growing cold. Most of the dispute has centred around Canada's automobile manufacturing sector and protected agricultural industries. Oil has hardly figured in the negotiations, even though it is central to the trade relationship. Canada supplies 43% of US imports—some 3.5m barrels a day—which in turn accounts for 98% of its own exports. Obviously, Canada will continue to be an important supplier to the US in the immediate ter