Canada Must Seize USMCA Opportunities, Says Carney
Prime Minister Mark Carney pushed back on comments from the U.S. ambassador to Canada, who recently said Ottawa and Washington are nowhere close to a deal to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Speaking to reporters Thursday in Ottawa at a press conference, Mr. Carney said it’s not that simple, and that a window for a deal can open quickly under U.S. President Donald Trump.
The USMCA, which governs continental trade, is approaching a milestone. On July 1, its mandatory review date, all three countries are supposed to signal whether they want to renew the deal for another 16 years or start a 10-year period of annual reviews that could lead to its expiration.
Officials from all three countries have said they expect negotiations to continue past July 1. But it was with an eye to the review date that the U.S. ambassador, Pete Hoekstra, said in a June 23 interview with CTV that the two countries remain far apart in talks.
“We’re not anywhere close to announcing any type of a framework or an interim agreement,” he said.
Mr. Carney said on Thursday that progress on deals with Mr. Trump is hard to gauge.
“What I have seen with the President is that you’re not close to making a deal – and then you make a deal,” Mr. Carney said.
“So, both things can be true.”
He added this means Canada must be ready to cut a deal, with all the advance work done, if an opportunity arises.
“It means being prepared, having done the work, knowing what you want,” the Prime Minister said.
Mr. Hoekstra, whose full comments to CTV will be aired Sunday, said he believed the next steps toward a trade deal should be at the presidential and prime ministerial level.
Mr. Carney said he agreed that “ultimately a breakthrough” in talks would be at this level.
He said Canada’s USMCA approach is not simply leader-to-leader.
“We operate a little differently: We are very team-oriented here in Canada, so it matters,” Mr. Carney said. He mentioned Canada’s lead negotiator, Janice Charette; the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc; Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Mark Wiseman; as well as the provincial premiers.
“There’ll come a point” where the “possibility emerges” for a deal, Mr. Carney said.
But, he cautioned, Canada will not sign just any deal.
“I mean, we could sign a bad deal this afternoon, right? We could have signed a bad deal a year ago. We’re not going to sign a bad deal, so it has to be a real deal.”
Any of the countries can also withdraw from the USMCA with six months’ notice. Earlier this month, when the U.S. President talked of not renewing USMCA for 16 more years, he stopped short of threatening to outright quit the agreement.
Mr. Carney, who spoke with Mr. Trump on Wednesday, said this conversation, initiated by the President, didn’t touch on the USMCA.
He said the Wednesday call with Mr. Trump, which at times included officials such as Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, covered a range of issues, including the NATO military alliance, as well as Iran and the broader Middle East.
The Prime Minister said there are things he is working on with the Americans, but he declined to elaborate, adding, “I think those are best left till they come to fruition.”
He also reiterated a message that NATO partners are spreading in anticipation of Mr. Trump’s participation at the coming alliance leaders’ meeting in Turkey: that Canada and others have boosted defence spending.
Mr. Carney emphasized Canada’s aid to Ukraine and its deployment in Latvia as part of a NATO deterrence mission. “We are at the front lines in Latvia with Operation Reassurance, and we are one of the most important contributors to support of Ukraine, including security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Mexico and the U.S. have already scheduled a third round of USMCA negotiations for late July, three weeks after the review date. Canada and the U.S. have yet to start formal negotiations.
Mr. Trump himself can’t seem to make up his mind about the agreement, which he signed in his first term. “I’d rather leave it unsigned, I’d rather have it terminated,” the President told reporters last week at the G7 conference in Évian-les-Bains, France. “But I may sign it.”
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
