The Canadian ambassador to the United States and co-director of the federal government’s Team Canada Strategy Office says U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has a different understanding of the bilateral relationship than he did during his first term in the White House. He said he has.
Throughout the campaign, President Trump has threatened to impose flat tariffs on imported goods, restart the trilateral free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, and launch a large-scale deportation operation. There are growing concerns about population outflow.
Despite this, Ambassador Kirsten Hillman told CTV’s Question Period host Vassie Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday that trade negotiations during President Trump’s first term will continue to take place amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Coupled with overcoming physical borders, he said, it has “sensitized” the president-elect to national peculiarities. Relations between Canada and the United States.
“I think the difference is that he himself understands the importance of the Canada-U.S. relationship in a different way,” she said. “We went through the renegotiation of NAFTA, which wasn’t always easy, but we were able to come up with a really, really effective agreement, an agreement that took Canada-U.S. trade to historic levels. .”
“And he knows it,” Hillman added. “So he can take credit for it.”
Trade experts and industry representatives have expressed concern about the potential impact of President Trump’s promise of additional tariffs of 10% or more on imported goods on the economies of both the United States and Canada. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimates the economic impact in this country to be $30 billion annually.
When asked about this policy and the lack of assurances from President Trump or his team that Canada would be exempted from such measures, Hillman said that the relationship with the incoming Trump administration was initially He insisted that he was “starting from a different place” than when he took office. 8 years ago.
“President Trump believes in tariffs as a policy tool, and that’s true,” the ambassador said. “Does that mean he believes in them as a policy tool for every country in every situation? No, I don’t think so.”
He cited negotiations over tough steel and aluminum tariffs during President Trump’s first term and the renegotiation of NAFTA as evidence that Canada can make inroads into the incoming Trump administration.
“I’m not in a position to speculate on the outcome, but I know there are really, really good arguments,” Hillman said. “We know we had some success last time, and we know we are committed to this issue.”
Mr. Hillman discussed past and future presidents’ decisions to eliminate previous tariffs, primarily because Canada had threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs, and whether Canada would threaten to apply retaliatory tariffs in this case. When asked about this, he said nothing is off the table.
“I don’t think we can speculate on what exactly will happen, but I think Canada is prepared to consider all options to protect the interests of Canadians and protect the Canadian economy,” he said.
With files from CTV Question Period Senior Producer Brennan McDonald
The full interview is available in the video player at the top of this article.
