The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that for decades Canadian politicians have waxed on about the need to reduce barriers to interprovincial trade, with little progress. The Globe's Jason Kirby writes that all it took for them to act was the existential threat of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war and his repeated attacks on Canadian sovereignty. It is not that Canada's provinces do not trade among themselves. The problem is, internal trade has been stuck at the same level since the early 1990s. "As a share of the economy and total trade, internal trade has changed little since the 2017 Canadian Free Trade Agreement [CFTA], or even since NAFTA in 1994," BMO senior economist Sal Guatieri said in a note. "However, recent efforts by governments to remove barriers could shift this trajectory." Ottawa has already said it would ditch half of federal internal trade barriers, while Nova Scotia's own trade reform bill would go even further. The Quebec government plans to withdraw at least five of the 36 trade exemptions to the CFTA, though they were piecemeal steps. The province is also looking at harmonizing rules with other provinces for most consumer goods, excluding food, beverages and tobacco.