Prime Minister Mark Carney said the United States has dropped some of its previous demands during trade talks, including a limit on Canada’s ability to make deals with other countries.
“Some of our red lines have clearly shifted around language, around culture, around sovereignty, our ability to have trade deals. In other words, those are now off the table. That’s very welcome. There are other important issues on which we still need to make progress,” Carney told reporters in St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, on Nov. 3. “They’re asking less and they’re offering more.”
The prime minister has said trade negotiations broke down on Aug. 21 after Washington demanded restrictions on Canada’s ability to pursue trade agreements with other countries, the exclusion of medium- and heavy-duty trucks from tariff exemptions, and weaker protections for the French language and Canadian culture.
Trump administration officials have also accused Canada of making additional trade demands at the last moment. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has previously said that Washington had no objections to Canada’s French-language protection requirements, and that its concerns about Canada’s deals with other countries relate to issues such as other countries taking advantage of Canada’s U.S. trade deal to dump products such as steel, citing China as a “non-market economy country” that Washington is concerned about.
The White House proceeded with previously announced plans to impose 50 percent tariffs on $27.6 billion worth of Canadian goods on Aug. 22, and Canada followed suit on Sept. 8 with retaliatory tariffs of 15, 25, and 50 percent on $27.6 billion worth of U.S. imports.
Carney told reporters that the two sides had made progress on trade talks, but there is still more work to be done.
“If I were to paraphrase it, it’s they’re asking less and they’re offering more, but we’re not quite there,” he said. “The process of more intense negotiations has begun.”
Carney had also told reporters on Oct. 26 that Washington had moved closer to Ottawa’s position in trade negotiations, and that there was now a “greater prospect of a deal.”
During an interview on Fox News on Nov. 3, U.S. President Donald Trump also said his administration was nearing a trade agreement with Canada. “Canada is very good. We’re going to make a deal with Canada very soon,” he said.
A few days earlier, Trump said that the two sides have “the concept of a very good deal.” He added that “all tariffs” that U.S. farmers are subject to will be removed under the new deal.
“We’ve been losing money for many years with Canada, 70, 75 years. So we are now very close to having a deal,” Trump told reporters on Nov. 1.
