A week has passed and armchair quarterbacking the U.S. midterms is no longer Canada’s favourite pastime.

So what’s next? A Democratic majority in the House suggests some of the content of the final United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) might change but the deal as a whole will be grudgingly accepted by the House Democrats after the addition of certain custom flavours such as strengthened labour provisions. Also, most chapters of the USMCA look an awful lot like the Trans-Pacific Partnership so the Democrats will have a hard time justifying the rejection of a deal that is so similar to an agreement they themselves launched in 2011 and endorsed in 2016. But the reality is that changes in Congress will have little effect on Canada-U.S. relations.

The biggest thing that Canada needs from the U.S. right now is relief from the destabilizing effects of the U.S. national security tariffs, but the only way Congress can provide this is through the slow process of stripping U.S. President Donald Trump of his right to impose them – the only tariffs that are under his exclusive authority. Meanwhile, the Section 232 provisions will continue to be a burden to both foreign allies and U.S. businesses.

Maybe Canada should take advantage of this newly rebranded, best-ever, North American relationship. A year ago, the narrative from the White House maintained that Canadians were cheaters, Mexicans were criminals, and NAFTA was the worst trade agreement ever negotiated. With the conclusion of the USMCA talks, the new White House message is that Canada and Mexico are America’s closest friends, and we are all joined together by the best trade agreement on Earth...

This was excerpted from the 21 November 2018 edition of The Globe and Mail.