Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday as trade negotiations continue.
Carney will travel to the United States capital Monday ahead of the meeting. It will be his second visit to the White House since he became prime minister.
The Prime Minister's Office said in a news release that Carney's visit will focus on shared priorities in a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States.
Ottawa has been trying to find an off-ramp from Trump's sectoral tariffs, which are hammering Canada's steel, aluminum and automobile industries.
The Trump administration is also increasing duties on lumber later this month.
Trump pushed tariffs on Canadian goods to 35 per cent in August but those duties do not apply to goods compliant under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, also called CUSMA.
Canada and the U.S. separately launched consultations last month ahead of next year's CUSMA review.
Carney's latest in-person meeting with Trump comes after his key minister on Canada-U.S. trade said he hopes to make progress on one-off, sector-specific tariff deals with the U.S. before that official review begins.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc told parliamentary hearings in Ottawa on Thursday that "nobody has yet suggested" Ottawa should fold the sector-specific talks into the broader CUSMA review.
He told a Senate foreign affairs committee that Canada is still in discussions on dropping the sector-specific tariffs putting pressure on Canadian industries, and he does not see "a dead end in those conversations."
LeBlanc said "time will tell us if my optimism is misplaced."
Picture Courtesy: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
