ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the narratives that American and Canadian political leaders conveyed to citizens about the renegotiations. It refers to the new agreement negotiated in 2018 as the USMCA. The chapter argues that the Trump administration consistently advanced a singular narrative to Make America Great Again (MAGA) by repeating simple messages to support it. Freeland’s leadership style embraces the establishment narrative of the international rules-based order and her preferred communication style is the carefully crafted public speech. In Trump’s articulation of the MAGA vision, the US is a winner. Trump earned his reputation as an erratic and unpredictable president, but his NAFTA tweets reflected a remarkably consistent narrative. The Canadians’ “win-win-win” NAFTA narrative reflected the Liberal government’s broader “sunny ways” approach to governing.
