Canadian PM: Trade Rupture With US Doesn't Doom USMCA
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, at the Council on Foreign Relations, emphasized that Canada is aware that its proximity to the U.S. is no longer so enviable, since U.S. economic strategy "has clearly changed, from the support for the multilateral system to a more transactional and managed bilateral trade and investment approach."
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“This is not a transition. This is a rupture,” he said in New York. “This is a sharp change in a short period of time, driven by a variety of factors. We have a determination to rise up and meet this.”
Carney said Canada is working on lowering trade barriers between its provinces, as well as diversifying its trade patterns and where it sources its weapons.
"Candidly, we’ve been done a favor because we should have been -- all of these things we could have done before ourselves. So we needed the rupture. We needed the shock, it seems, in order to do them. But there is a very strong consensus in the country to do that," he said.
"The country does not want to wake up and look on, with all due respect, on Truth Social or X to see what the latest change is in U.S. policy, but wants to get on with what we can control," he said.
Although Carney joked, "Can we have the old system back?" he also asserted that Canada can thrive in the new non-system.
"We have what the world wants," he said, pointing to oil and gas, abundant clean energy, and its reserves of 10 of the world's most important critical minerals. Canada is also home to 40% of the largest public mining companies.
"We are a leading developer of AI," he said, with Canadian universities producing lots of expertise in the field.
"Unfortunately, most of them go to the United States," he said, and quipped, "I understand you’re changing your visa policy, I hear, so going to hang onto a few of those."
The U.S. has said that new H1-B visas will require a $100,000 fee.
Carney said the Group of Seven is working to form a buyers' club for critical minerals, which will also matter for Canada's sector, because there will be guaranteed demand.
Carney acknowledged that Canada's lumber, steel and auto industries are having a "big adjustment" due to higher U.S. tariffs, but said that Canadians would like to believe the U.S., Canada and Mexico can have new rules in the USMCA that will be adhered to, and said that there can be a version of the USMCA that would be "very attractive" for the U.S.