Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc is set to travel to Washington this week after United States President Donald Trump threatened to slap new tariffs on an array of Canadian goods starting next month.
LeBlanc's spokesperson Gabriel Brunet said Tuesday the minister will be joined by Janice Charette, Canada's chief trade negotiator. Brunet did not say exactly when LeBlanc and Charette will be in Washington or identify the officials they are meeting.
The meetings in the U.S. capital come as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Canada in advance of formal talks on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA.
The Trump administration said last week it would impose 50 per cent tariffs on certain Canadian goods in response to provincial liquor bans, Canada's dairy supply management system and certain automobile quotas.
Unlike many of Trump's other tariffs, the new duties will have no exemptions for goods compliant under CUSMA.
The continental trade pact has shielded Canada and Mexico from many of the president's tariffs but Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the agreement's future.
The president told Fox News Tuesday that he doesn't "really want to" update the trade agreement, adding, "I'd rather be independent."
"Mexico and Canada need us. We don't need them," he said. "The deal is important for them. It's not important for us."
During LeBlanc's last trip to Washington in June, which saw him meet with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, the minister said that Canada was looking for a 16-year extension to the trade agreement. LeBlanc and Greer met again on the sidelines of the G7 in France later that month.
But at the beginning of July, the Trump administration announced it was not extending the trilateral trade agreement. That triggered annual rolling reviews that could last for up to a decade — at which point CUSMA would expire unless all three countries agreed to an extension.
Mexico and Washington have started official CUSMA negotiations but Ottawa has not yet started formal talks.
Members of Trump's trade team have described Mexican negotiators as pragmatic but have complained about the Canadians being difficult.
In the weeks since LeBlanc's last trip to Washington, Canada has faced a barrage of U.S. tariff threats linked to wildfire smoke and the Trump administration temporarily blocked the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Ontario and Michigan.
Citing forced labour in supply chains, Greer announced new duties on Canada and dozens of other countries last week — hours before a different stopgap tariff authority was set to expire.
Greer, however, has indicated he's working towards a CUSMA extension. Trump's trade czar told a Senate finance hearing last week that he hopes to provide "options" by the end of the year to Trump, Canada and Mexico on renewing the continental trade pact.
"I would love to have between now and the end the year at least some arrangements — one with Canada, one with Mexico," Greer said July 22.
"And then some of these issues that are really important — like rules of origin, I know labour environment's important to a lot of folks here — that take a little more time, to have further discussion of that, including with Congress, in the following year."
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
