Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of turning Canada into “an opening that the Chinese pour cheap goods in” on Sunday.
Bessent appeared on ABC News’s This Week to address Carney’s recent deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping to lower tariffs mutually. Canada will lower its tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100% to 6.1%, which Bessent condemned.
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour cheap goods into the U.S.,” Bessent said. “I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue signal to his global friends at Davos. I don’t think he is doing the best job for the Canadian people.”
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Bessent noted that Canada has a “highly integrated market” with the United States and that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is up for renegotiation this summer.
“The Canadians, a few months ago, joined the U.S. in putting high steel tariffs on China because the Chinese are dumping. The Europeans also have done the same thing. It looks like Prime Minister Carney may have done an about-face,” Bessent added.
This comes after Xi promised to lower tariffs on Canadian canola seed from 85% to 15%. Carney met with Xi in Beijing to hammer out the deal.
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President Donald Trump slammed the deal in a series of social media posts, threatening a 100% tariff on Canadian goods on Saturday and revoking Canada’s invitation to the Board of Peace days before.
Monday will mark a new Parliamentary session for Canada. Carney signaled that the focus of lawmakers will be “to protect our communities, build our economy, and empower Canadians with new opportunities” in an X post Sunday.
