NAFTA 2.1: The changes Democrats (and Canada) settled on

Canada has again joined Mexico and the U.S. to sign on to the final — and this time they really mean final, apparently — text to improve the North American free trade agreement.

Mexico was the target of most of the revisions and concessions that Congressional Democrats were looking for, in return for letting the new NAFTA (officially the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA) come to a vote in Congress.

But Canada had to agree to it all anyway. And a few of the changes impact Canada directly.

For most of the day, all Canadians knew of the compromises House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had orchestrated came from a four-page, partisan sales job handed out by Democrats on the powerful House ways and means committee. 

It was suppertime before the Canadian government released "a summary of revised outcomes": the Coles Notes version of the legal text Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland signed on Canada's behalf in Mexico City Tuesday.

That official text was not public as of late Tuesday night. Canada may have signed on, but Canadians haven't been told exactly what they've signed up for...

This was excerpted from the 11 December 2019 edition of CBC News.