The Canadian-American Trade Agreement of 1935

Abstract

O N November 15, 1935 Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King signed a trade agreement that formally marked the return to economic sanity by the two countries after several years of commercial folly. The document's significance, however, goes beyond the termination of an unofficial trade war. It was both a product of forces which led to a new era in Canadian-American relations and a prelude to the close military and political cooperation during World War II. A positive response of Canadian and American leaders to potential world disorders, the trade pact facilitated the emergence of the joint North American security structure. In the healing of the economic breach between the United States and Canada are the seeds of a Roosevelt-King friendship from which grew not only the Ogdensburg Agreement and the Hyde Park Declaration, but also a Roosevelt-Churchill understanding. The Canadian Prime Minister later became an important interpreter between these two world figures prior to their own experiments in personal diplomacy. Canadian-American reciprocity had a centripetal effect in yet another way. It confirmed the belief of many Canadians that an American cognizant of their interests and feelings lived in the White House. The military and political collaboration of the later years made inevitable by German and Japanese aggression was much more palatable, thanks to the popularity of Roosevelt in the Dominion. The negotiation of this first really important trade agreement reflects a fundamental reality in American diplomatic history-the deterministic nature of the democratic process. More than any other factor, partisan politics shaped the policy decisions during the informal and formal discussions between the two governments. Nor was this political determinism confined to the United States. Canadian administrations, like the American, were careful not to antagonize elements of the voting public, or to promote political