The negotiation and eventual ratification of the Canada-USA Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) was a hinge moment in Canadian politics. The implementation of CUSFTA significantly accelerated trade between the two nations, fundamentally changing the Canadian economy and Canadian society in a hinge moment. Morphing into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1990s and later the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), the agreement has meant that the Canadian economy has been increasingly integrated with the United States.

This integration has been in the spotlight in 2025 with the crisis of the trade war kick-started by the Trump administration’s tariffs on key Canadian sectors. This crisis is further exacerbated by the looming CUSMA review set to take place in 2026. As of writing, Canada and the United States have started negotiations involving CUSMA; however, the agreement faces an uphill battle. Using a longue durée and interdisciplinary approach, this presentation traces how North American trade regimes have structured Canada’s economic integration and explores how current trade tensions with the United States may signal a new hinge moment.

The presentation will build off of works of authors in Critical Canadian Political Economy, including Mackintosh (1923), Cohen (1988) and Haley (2011), to demonstrate how the trade liberalization trajectory from CUSFTA to CUSMA has deepened structural dependencies on U.S. capital, markets, and policy discourses. Drawing on the idea of the staple-exporting economy specifically, the analysis will interpret free trade as a recurring hinge moment that both consolidates and destabilizes Canada’s economic sovereignty.