U.S. Refuses 16-Year Renewal of CUSMA, Forcing Decade-Long Annual Reviews

North America has been here before: in 1971 President Nixon’s “Nixon Shock” tariff surcharge and in 1930 the Smoot-Hawley Act both rattled allies, only to be diluted once domestic costs surfaced. Today’s move fits a longer arc of U.S. episodic protectionism—surging in the 1980s (Voluntary Export Restraints on Japanese cars), waning in the 1994 NAFTA era, and re-emerging under Trump’s tariff strategy. The built-in CUSMA sunset clause, originally inserted at U.S. insistence in 2018, institutionalises periodic uncertainty; it is a structural shift away from the rules-based permanence that governed post-1945 trade. Whether the pact ultimately unravels or stabilises will shape continental supply chains for decades: a durable accord would continue the 30-year trend toward North American economic integration, while an eventual U.S. withdrawal could rewind integration levels to the pre-NAFTA landscape of the late 1980s, affecting not just trade balances but strategic competitiveness against the EU-Asia megablocs over the next century.