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This is the point in the game of chicken where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must decide whether to swerve or keep hurtling on. Parliament resumes sitting this week, a year out from a federal election campaign, but nothing will matter as much as the big game in Washington, at the North American free-trade agreement talks.

What’s happening there? It’s at the stage where a deal is both really close and dangerously stalled, and most of what comes out of the room is posturing. One report last week cited an unnamed source that claimed the government is willing to run out the clock on the Sept. 30 deadline if they don’t get a better deal, but, of course, it’s easier to claim you will stick to your guns at crunch time when you’re speaking anonymously. There are certainly Liberals who want to get the deal done.

For all the other political dramas that will unfold as MPs come back to Ottawa – Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government must decide how it will revive the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion after a court setback, and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer faces new competition on his right from Maxime Bernier’s fledgling People’s Party – the NAFTA decision is in another class.

It’s a choice between a string of unpalatable concessions that weaken Canadian access to the export market that makes up about a fifth of this country’s GDP, or taking the risk that U.S. President Donald Trump will follow through on threats to scrap the trade agreement and impose punishing tariffs on autos that could tip Canada into recession. Mr. Trudeau has to make that call within days.

There have been suggestions that Mr. Trump’s bluster has helped Mr. Trudeau politically. “Every time Trump tweets, Trudeau looks better,” John McKay, an astute veteran Liberal MP, said last week. But that’s only so far. The idea that Mr. Trudeau will get a pass from voters because he’s dealing with an unpredictable U.S. president isn’t likely to hold true if ordinary Canadians rue the results.

That Sept. 30 deadline set by Mr. Trump might not be the real deadline – his time limits have come and gone before – but there are real time pressures.

Mr. Trump wants to put the new trade agreement to the current, Republican-dominated Congress, which sits for the last time in December, because Democrats might win control of the House of Representatives.

He has threatened to go ahead with a bilateral deal with Mexico if Canada does not sign on. That might violate the rules because, while Congress granted the administration power to negotiate a trilateral agreement, there is no guarantee congressional Republicans will fight their President on that point. Even if Congress did try to stop Mr. Trump from scrapping NAFTA for a bilateral deal with Mexico, the President would still have a powerful threat: that he would impose punishing tariffs on Canada, notably on autos.

That’s a risk for Mr. Trump, too. It could devastate U.S. auto makers like General Motors and Ford. It could also heighten fears that Mr. Trump’s larger trade war is going to damage the global economy. Some analysts are already warning trade risks could trigger a heated stock market to crash. But Mr. Trump is reportedly preparing new tariffs on an additional US$200-billion worth of Chinese goods. Will he want peace on the North American trade front? Mr. Trudeau can’t be sure.

That means the Prime Minister faces a decision whose consequences might outweigh most others. A full-on trade war could hit Canada’s economy so hard it becomes the dominant political issue. Avoiding the trade war by making a deal could spark a whole series of other political issues.

The expected concessions on dairy might bring a backlash from protected farmers, notably in Quebec. Concessions on intellectual-property protections might lead to concerns Canadian drug prices will rise. The United States is pressing for border-tax changes that could hit Canada’s retail sector. And the big problem is that it’s hard to be certain that Mr. Trump will stick to any deal for long.

No, Mr. Trudeau can’t expect that fighting Mr. Trump will bring him political rewards. Not when it can have a big impact on Canadians’ everyday lives. And he can’t be sure he’ll get a political pass if Canadians don’t like a new trade agreement, not once they see the results. He’s facing a political decision that’s bigger than all the others.

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