A new international order is emerging, according to representatives at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and at the Munich Security Conference — one of fragmented states acting in their own self-interest, sovereign fortresses sliding toward economic nationalism.
A Munich conference statement places much of the blame on Canada’s neighbour: “The international order is ‘under destruction’ because the country that has long shaped and defended it, namely the United States, is now governed by actors who prefer sweeping demolition over incremental reform and repair.”
The political fiction of fortresses hides the fact that dismantling the rule of law in one state shreds environmental, health and human rights accountability across borders, particularly where markets remain deeply integrated.
Canada, the United States and Mexico are bound by one of the world’s most integrated economic systems. Supply chains, energy systems, food production and manufacturing operate across borders that don’t recognize chemical pollution, toxic emissions and other ecological harms.
Yet the forthcoming review of the countries’ trade agreement is unfolding in a context in which one party — the U.S. — is rapidly breaking down environmental, health and safety regulations while demanding deeper market access.
In light of the recent repeal of the U.S. “endangerment finding” — the legal determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare — Canada and Mexico must defend science as the foundation of trade and regulation.
An integrated market with a rogue deregulatory state will inflict damage on the whole continent. Meaningful accountability regarding the human rights, ecosystem and public health impacts of trade is already lacking in the Canada-Mexico-U.S. agreement. Environmental provisions are weak, enforcement is constrained and climate obligations are absent.
As the U.S. accelerates deregulation — allowing factories to pollute more and exempting industries from rules that safeguard air, water, land and human health — any renewed trade agreement will export harm to people in Canada, Mexico and globally.
This is the reality of integration under deregulation. Carbon pollution, contaminated air and toxic water move through connected, borderless ecosystems. Supply chains predictably distribute toxic exposure to workers, Indigenous and other historically marginalized communities, children and the elderly. When environmental standards collapse in one jurisdiction on a continent with contiguous borders, everyone absorbs the costs.
Yet trade negotiations are framed as matters of national security and economic necessity — arguments used to justify secrecy, speed and public exclusion. Governments insist on prioritizing competitiveness over environmental and health safeguards. This political strategy is designed to shield trade governance from transparency, accountability and scrutiny.
The result is a black box: trade agreements are negotiated behind closed doors, insulated from democratic participation and ratified with little opportunity for meaningful challenge. Once in force, they restructure economies, lock in regulatory trajectories and leave future policy spaces without mechanisms capable of responding to the detriments they produce. This model is intensifying globally.
In the face of the U.S. threat, corporate executives are consolidating control over trade and investment policy. Legislatures are being sidelined and accountability mechanisms are being weakened or quietly abandoned. National security language has become the most powerful tool for normalizing this shift. In its shadow, environmental protection and public health are being reframed as expendable.
Canada and Mexico must urgently break the chain of deepened integration with the U.S., as the latter has proven to be driven by violence, openly hostile to regulation, dismissive of international norms and indifferent to the deleterious cross-border consequences of its policies. The only certainty is the increased pollution and regulatory chaos that can’t possibly be contained within U.S. borders.
No executive — in Washington, Ottawa or elsewhere — should have the unilateral power to dismantle protections, bypass accountability and impose dangerous consequences on people beyond their borders. Yet this is the model being normalized: centralized authority, minimal transparency and the erosion of public recourse, all in the name of trade and security.
The global public must wake up to this reality. Trade and investment agreements determine water and air quality. They govern decisions about whose land will be sacrificed and who will bear the long-term health costs. Treating trade governance as a sealed domain governed by security imperatives is reckless.
People across borders must reject the lies of securitized trade, demand transparency and insist that economic integration can’t come at the cost of life itself.
David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Director-General for Quebec and Atlantic Canada Sabaa Khan.
