The main Canada-USA interviews are coming: here’s what’s at stake
The Canadian Prime Minister, whoever is in a few weeks, is about to walk straight in a historic crossroads.
We learned the next government on Friday will begin wide -ranging negotiations on a new economic and security agreement with the United States.
This could lead to drastically different places: along a path, a long -term deep freezing in US relationships; At the bottom of the other, a closer relationship than ever in a metaphorical continental fortress.
This development comes in an unusual day. After months to diminish and browse, the president of the United States Donald Trump suddenly seems more congenial.
“I always liked Canada,” Trump said to journalists on Friday on Air Force One. At another point on Friday, he said he had an excellent first speech with Prime Minister Mark Carley.
“I think things will go very well between Canada and the United States.”
The president of the United States Donald Trump said he received a good phone call with Prime Minister Mark Carley on Friday. Trump talked in general of his scheduled rates on April 2 and did not offer any real details of what was discussed in the first call among the leaders, even if he noticed: “I think things will be very well between Canada and the United States”.
Easier to say than to do. We still don’t get the champagne caps to celebrate a return to normal, right?
The rates are still underway and Trump is still a notoriously fickle figure. Today’s hot words could easily turn into bad tweets of tomorrow and more rates.
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The negotiations will be further complicated by the fact that the Canadians are still smoking in Trump, with little appetite for the concessions of their leader, says a analyst.
“The Canadians have a profound contempt for Donald Trump,” said Eric Miller, a commercial consultant of Canadian origin based in Washington.
“(Ottawa) will have a difficult moment, a really difficult moment, sailing for this.”
Having said that, it is obvious, according to Miller, that Trump felt motivated to cool the temperature with Canada, for one of the different possible reasons.
The leader of the liberal party Mark Carryy says that his phone call with the president of the United States Donald Trump on Friday morning was very “friendly” between two leaders of two sovereign nations. Carney says that Trump respected Canada’s sovereignty both in his private and public comments on Friday.
American economic mood is acid quickly. Americans they are not passionate on the quarrel with Canada. And, well, Carney is not Justin Trudeau.
“See a basic level of respect (for Carney, from Trump) and the feeling that things must move in a somewhat different direction,” Miller said.
Their call “certainly did not report a worsening of the relationship”.
Trump’s next requests
So what will Trump want after the elections next month? We can make predictions based on recent public statements and old American needs that embrace multiple administrations.
The simplest call of all? Dairy products. Trump constantly raises him and will want to get more access to the market for farmers in Wisconsin, an oscillating state that has brought.
Carney insists that the topic is a no-go: “He is out of the table,” he said on Friday, when he was asked about the longtime policy of Canada management of offers in dairy products.
We will see.
The United States have other commercial complaints with Canada and have explained them In the past, in particular the tax on digital services, which penalizes the US technological giants.
For safety, a couple of us requests are easily foreseen: plus military expenses and faster, especially in the Arctic.
Also expect chatter increased on the development of the critical minerals of Canada.
The United States will probably also push new measures to maintain Chinese products outside the supply chains – from steel, cars. This is a cross, prevalent, global, strategic goal.
Here is a potential Jolly: ballistic missile defense. Canada traditionally refused to join the program.
Yet now, since the United States try to renew its program to face a series of new technological threats, Some Americans detect A recent Ottawa opening on that front.
Then there is banking. Based on the recent comments of Trump, says Miller, wait for you to push for US banks to have easier access to the Canadian market.
A former American official has significantly defined that countries are talking about wide -ranging interviews that include both trade and safety.
This indicates a potentially wider geostrategic game, says Geoffrey Gertz – one in which the allies lower the barriers with each other, but raise them on opponents like China.
“(Could) really set the foundations for what some people call an” Fortress of North America’s approach “, said Gertz, a former official of the White House and the State Department in the Biden Administration.
He described how this could work in A piece He wrote with Emily Kilcrease, a commercial official in the past the administrations of Trump, Biden and Obama.
For China and other opponents, they offer new restrictions on the export of products with potential security applications, restrictions on transfrontier data flows and a sidewalk on some types of company investments.
The leader of the Québécois Yves-François Blanchet block and the conservative leader Pierre Poir Poiievre gave their thoughts on the apparent change of attitude by the President of the United States Donald Trump for the rates for Canada after his call with Prime Minister Mark Carryy on Friday.
Do not count on details
Canadian politicians will not want to talk about some of these things during the elections. They are not winners of the votes.
While the Québécois and Ndp block could push for details, the largest parts will have every incentive to cancel these conversations. Carney’s refusal to discuss dairy products is a first example.
Canada will have some churches in sake. Leaving the timber of timber is one.
But a more ambitious and important goal would be to take the favorite weapon of Trump away: rates.
The president currently has a great power to impose them, citing national security, pursuant to the law of the United States. Canada would like to incorporate some conditions in any legislation update the Canada-USA-Mexico agreement, therefore the rates could be fought in court.
“If you are (the prime minister), what you need to ask is a ban on future use of rates,” Miller said.
Trump will deceive to give up. Being resistant, perhaps even more resistant, compared to the next Prime Minister he will be to angery the dairy communities -Casearies of Ontario and Quebec.
This is the world that awaits the future Prime Minister.
