Reciprocity with Canada

Sunday, September 2, 2012

 

On this date in 1892, Fargo North Dakota adjourned an important international conference. Today, reciprocity, or “the practice of exchanging things for mutual benefit,” seems an obvious thing to do with our northern neighbors in Canada, but back then, there were still some hard feelings left over from Great Britain’s unofficial support for the South in the Civil War, so not everybody was keen on sharing. An earlier Canadian-American trade treaty was signed in 1854, but the war tensions brought that to an end in 1865. The Fargo conference in 1892 was the first to reconsider the question, but it took until 1988 for free trade to be realized with the adoption of the Canada-US Free Trade agreement.

 

Dakota Datebook written by Leewana Thomas

 

 

Sources:

State Historical Society of North Dakota “Today in North Dakota History”

Charles Transill, “The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty of 1854” Online Edition