Canada hopeful of getting ‘best possible' US trade deal with Trump
'We buy more from the US than China, Japan, the UK and France combined, so we're not in the same league as others,' Francois-Philippe Champagne said in an interview.
'The competitiveness of North America depends on what happens between Canada and the United States,' he said, pointing to Canada's wealth of critical minerals and energy, the integrated supply chains across the border and its status as the largest supplier of aluminium to the US.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump have agreed to try to hammer out a deal by July 21 to govern the two countries' trade relationship, which saw them exchange more than US$900 billion in goods and services last year.
The US had a trade deficit of US$36 billion with Canada in 2024, according to US government data, mostly because it guzzles millions of barrels a day of Canadian oil and fuels. Excluding energy, the US had a trade surplus with its northern neighbour.
The US, Canada and Mexico have an existing trade pact that Trump signed during his first term. But the president paid little heed to it as he placed import taxes of 50 per cent on foreign steel and aluminium, along with levies on cars and trucks.
'The endgame for us is to have the best possible deal for Canadian workers and the Canadian industry,' Champagne said. 'We have, compared to many countries that are negotiating with the United States, already a trade agreement in place.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
5 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Trump uses antisemitism slur ‘Shylock' in rally, denies knowing it's offensive
US President Donald Trump used an antisemitism slur during a rally in Iowa as he celebrated the passage of his tax cuts and spending bill but insisted he did not know the word was offensive to Jewish people. 'No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases a fine banker, and in some cases Shylocks and bad people,' Trump told the crowd on Thursday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. The term 'Shylock' is borrowed from William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The tale features a Jewish character, who is portrayed as a ruthless moneylender demanding 'a pound of flesh' from a merchant unable to repay a loan. The word refers to loan sharks and has long been considered offensive, playing on stereotypes of Jews and greed. The Trump controversy echoes a similar incident in 2014 when then-Vice-President Joe Biden used the term while describing exploitative lenders. Biden later apologised, calling it 'a poor choice of words'. 03:02 US House passes Trump's bill, sending it to White House for president to sign US House passes Trump's bill, sending it to White House for president to sign 'We see once again how deeply embedded this stereotype about Jews is in society,' Abraham Foxman, then-director of a Jewish activist group, the Anti-Defamation League, said at the time.
South China Morning Post
6 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
How to undermine the US dollar and destroy its monetary system
As a professional journalist dedicated to objectivity and detachment, I am totally uncalm about the US president. But you would be too if he had burned a big hole in your wallet. Since Donald Trump returned to power, the US dollar has dropped more than 10 per cent against the dollar index consisting of six major currencies, reportedly the worst fall since the oil shock of 1973. As you may have guessed, I am paid by my employer in Hong Kong dollars. So thanks to the US dollar peg, I had just had to exchange HK$5.8-plus for one Canadian dollar, instead of the roughly average HK$5.4 until recently. On a monthly basis, the difference is roughly equivalent to, for my wife and me, 6 to 7 visits to our favourite grocery store where the real inflation rate for some items, I suspect, is 10 times the headline Canadian rate of under 2 per cent. Every time Trump attacks or insults US Fed chair Jerome Powell, I weep. Posting on his own Truth Social platform, he has just openly called on Powell to resign: ''Too Late' should resign immediately!!!' The president has called him 'Mr Too Late', 'a numbskull', 'an average mentally person…Low IQ for what he does'. It's been a long list of insults. Poor Jerome. Financial historians may correct me but probably no previous Fed chair had to endure such prolonged public humiliation. Since Trump's avowed goal for his almost universal tariff war is to promote Made-in-America exports, he obviously wants a weak dollar. So there is a method in the madness in attacking Powell; and Trump seems personally to enjoy it. But there is no reason to doubt that he wants Powell out and replace him with what he calls 'a low rates guy', a complete sycophant just like he has with those put in charge of public health, education, defence, national security and intelligence, and much else. Powell's term ends next May.
South China Morning Post
6 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
China's top diplomat on Ukraine war, US-Vietnam deal in spotlight: SCMP daily highlights
Catch up on some of SCMP's biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the European Union's top diplomat on Wednesday that Beijing did not want to see a Russian loss in Ukraine because it feared the United States would then shift its whole focus to Beijing, according to several people familiar with the exchange. The passage of a sprawling budget bill has raised concerns over the long-term debt of the United States, which analysts said could compound already heightened worries over the reliability of the country's currency as a safe-haven asset. Tasting glasses of aged French cognac brandy are poured in France. Photo: Shutterstock China has decided to levy anti-dumping tariffs on European brandy, mostly produced in France, for the next five years – an announcement made while Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on his European tour seeking to resolve trade disputes and improve ties amid a reshuffle of global trade dynamics introduced by the United States.
