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Canada’s Trade Minister has said the decision to drop retaliatory tariffs puts Ottawa in a better position to negotiate changes to US President Donald Trump’s devastating duties on key sectors and eases tensions ahead of a review of a critical continental trade agreement.
Toronto Today reports that LeBlanc said, “Our responsibility as the government is to get the best deal we can for Canadian businesses and Canadian workers. We have to be prepared to sit constructively at a table with the other side of the table and have that conversation.”
Prime Minister Mike Carney had announced on Friday that Canada would drop some retaliatory tariffs on US products to match American tariff exemptions for goods covered under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement on trade, called CUSMA.
Canada’s counter-tariffs on steel, aluminium, and automobiles will remain.
Canadian officials have said that key exemption puts Canada in a better position than most countries, including nations that made a deal with the Trump administration. Trump’s separate tariffs on steel, aluminium, automobiles and copper, however, are hammering Canadian industries.
