International Trade Minister meets with Greer, highlights trade war’s impact

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Canada’s Minister of International Trade has met with the U.S. Trade Representative, the first meeting of its kind since talks between the two countries fell apart in August.

Maninder Sidhu spoke with his American counterpart, Jamieson Greer, Wednesday evening on the sidelines of a G20 trade ministers meeting in Milwaukee.

In a brief statement posted to social media, Mr. Sidhu said he had raised the “the implications of trade uncertainties on both sides of the border,” days after the U.S. imposed a ban on imports of a number of Canadian goods, from molasses to liquor and three-wheeled motorcycles.

Mr. Sidhu said he had sought to emphasize the pain caused to the auto sector “with workers on both sides feeling the impacts.”

But the two men spoke mostly about G20-related issues, Mr. Greer told Bloomberg Thursday. The trade talks with Washington have been primarily handled by the Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc.

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Mr. Greer on Thursday sought to qualify comments earlier this week from President Donald Trump, who suggested a trade deal with Canada could be completed in weeks.

“I’d emphasize the may in that part of the situation. We’ve always been open to a deal with Canada,” he said.

But “gaps remain between Canada and the United States,” he said.

He added: “the question is, does Canada want to get to yes on some of these things? We have a trade policy where we’re not inclined to go to zero tariffs.”

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In the U.S., cost escalations caused by tariffs have taken on political importance in several tightly contested races ahead of midterm elections in early November. In Michigan, for example, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has cited a household cost of US$5,600.

”Tariffs are brutalizing Michigan, and other states should heed the warning,” she wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month.

The trade war with Canada, she wrote, is “making things worse” for people in Michigan confronting rising prices.

Mr. Greer said last week that Mr. Trump “is comfortable where we are on Canada,” after months of a deepening trade war that has imposed punishing tariffs on a lengthening list of goods.

Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mr. LeBlanc have continued to speak with Mr. Trump and Mr. Greer in recent weeks, but have given no indication that trade talks could restart.

Instead, Mr. Trump took fresh aim at Canada, saying this week that one of his country’s closest allies and trading partners is ”one of the worst countries in the entire world.”

“They want to have a deal with us,” Mr. Trump said Monday. “They call us all the time. The problem is, they have treated the United States very unfairly.”

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The U.S. is the chair of this year’s G20 meetings, which it has used to further Mr. Trump’s disruptive global agenda.

In Milwaukee, a city chosen as a host because of its Great Lakes industrial history, Mr. Greer advocated acting outside of the the World Trade Organization and the foundation it has set for global commerce.

“Typically, and too often, when difficult questions and topics arise in the G20, many around the room suggest that such discussions belong elsewhere. That they should take place in Geneva at the WTO,” Mr. Greer said in prepared remarks at the opening of the meetings this week. “But Geneva is just another city on a lake. And so is Milwaukee.”

He decried ”slavish fidelity to multilateral rules,” and has sought to weaken the WTO’s most-favoured nation principle, which mandates equal and non-discriminatory treatment among trading partners.

That principle, ”particularly when applied unconditionally, constrains economies’ ability to effectively respond to distortive policies and adapt to changing market conditions,” Mr. Greer said.

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Canada, by contrast, attended the meetings in hopes of defending a global trading system that has come under sustained attack from Mr. Trump and the waves of tariffs his administration has imposed on friends and foes alike.

“We champion open, predictable and rules-based trade that supports economic growth and strengthens global supply chain resilience,” Mr. Sidhu said in a statement.

Even so, he arrived in Milwaukee determined to pursue new individual deals to privilege Canadian access to markets like India and the European Union.

”In a more unpredictable world, trade diversification is Canada’s Plan A and has been since our government took office,” Mr. Sidhu said in the statement. He pointed to the scale of change that has already taken place, with a 17 per cent increase over the past year in Canadian trade with countries outside the U.S.

“Nearly one-third of Canadian exports now go to destinations outside the United States, the highest share in 40 years,” Mr. Sidhu said.