The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday, Sept. 11, edition that the U.S. plan to shake down Canada and Mexico in an effort to get a better North American free-trade agreement will fail, because no agreement is better than a bad agreement, particularly with World Trade Organization rules backstopping NAFTA. The Globe's guest columnist Andrei Sulzenko writes that for example, the U.S. demand for American content in NAFTA-made cars is laughable because automakers would be better off paying the alternative, much more flexible, WTO "bound" tariff of 2.5 per cent into the U.S. market, with potentially zero NAFTA content. Further, the self-inflicted downside for the U.S. of this kind of "my way or the highway" gambit is that it further raises the bar with President Donald Trump's electoral base when it comes to ultimately proclaiming success. If anything, Mr. Sulzenko says the U.S. should be dialling down the rhetoric and preparing the public for a modernized agreement with enough political "gets" for all sides to declare victory. Indeed, based on public reports, it appears that there is a deal on the table if negotiators and their political masters have the wit to see it through.