Canadian officials said Thursday that anger over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs could become an issue in Canada’s parliamentary elections in October and prevent their country from ratifying the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement on trade.
“It is a challenge with the tariffs in place,” Canadian Minister of Transport Marc Garneau said when asked if ratification would happen this year at a Washington D.C. event hosted by the Canadian American Business Council.
Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., David MacNaughton, who was seated alongside Garneau, concurred with the assessment, saying the U.S. should “just get rid of the tariffs.”
The tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum are causing significant anger, and that could sway votes, the officials said. That, in turn, is making legislators wary of bringing the deal up for a vote.
MacNaughton noted that the U.S. has granted numerous individual exemptions from tariffs for products not made in the U.S. Virtually all of the exceptions are for items coming from China, he claimed, but few, if any, for ones made by Canada.
[Also read: Mexico ambassador commits to updating labor laws to pass Trump’s USMCA]
The officials added that they had made the Trump administration aware of the situation. “[U.S.Trade Representative] Robert Lighthizer hears from me whether he wants to or not,” Garneau joked.
Asked directly if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government wouldn’t move to ratify the trade deal at all if the tariffs are still in place, the officials declined to comment.
Parliament watchers said that the window to get Canada to pass USMCA was shrinking. “We have to have it done by late spring,” said Gordon Griffin, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada during the Clinton administration.
The Trump administration is viewed with suspicion and some resentment by Canadian parliamentarians, said Jim Blanchard, who also served as U.S. ambassador to Canada during the Clinton administration.
“I’ve been told that the Canadian parliament won’t even present it for a vote if the U.S. doesn’t pass USMCA first,” he said.
Canada as well as Mexico were exempted from the tariffs when the Trump administration instituted them last year, but the exemptions were removed to pressure the countries during the USMCA negotiations. The White House did not restore them after the USMCA talks were finished and has resisted pleas from the trade partners as well as the business community and members of Congress to restore the exemptions.
