THE CASE FOR SCRAPPING NAFTA (IV): It's time to change trade relations with our imperial neighbour

Cancelling a meeting of trade bureaucrats to protest U.S. defiance of a NAFTA trade ruling on softwood lumber would accomplish nothing. Nor would a telephone tag between our Prime Minister and the American President. Huffing and puffing will neither impress nor influence the Bush administration in Washington.

The reality is that we are dealing with an American political system currently steeped in the ideology of "empire." It recognizes few rules, adheres only to those treaties that are expedient to its basic interests, and believes that the only political currency that counts is the exercise of raw power.

In its mildest form, it practises a Ia carte bilateralism, …