“NAfta renegotiations and support for Canada-China FTA. 2019 Forthcoming. Canadian foreign policy journal.
Do renegotiations of existing free trade agreements (FTAs) increase mass support for other FTAs, and if so, how? The media and scholars have suggested that the recent uptick in support for a Canada-China FTA can be attributed in part to NAFTA renegotiations, based on trends in public opinion polls. In this article, I present a formal test of this causal claim. I identify two interrelated causal mechanisms (distribution of benefits from cooperation and market threat) linking NAFTA renegotiations as a causal variable to explain support for a Canada-China FTA. I evaluate these causal mechanisms using new data from a survey experiment carried out during NAFTA renegotiations. The results provide support for both causal mechanisms and are consistent with existing notions about why Canadians have recently increased their support for a trade deal with China. Policy implications are discussed following the analysis.