'They're wrong': Foreign Affairs minister rejects claim USMCA ties Canada's hands on trade
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says that anyone who thinks the new trilateral North American trade agreement limits Canada's trade sovereignty is misguided.
Freeland told Chris Hall, host of CBC Radio's The House, that the section of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that lays out the rules for making pacts with "non-market" countries won't limit Canada's attempts to diversify its export and import partners.
"It's the one element of the modernized NAFTA that has not been fully understood by Canadians," she said Thursday.
"There is nothing new in this clause and in the new agreement that restricts Canadian sovereignty in any way."
Section 32.10 of the deal's text states that a USMCA country must give three months' notice to the other two parties before negotiating a free trade agreement with any country determined to be "non-market" — and therefore ineligible — by one of the USMCA partners.
Many have taken this to be a direct reference to China, as the U.S. has been engaged in a tariff battle with Beijing for months. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of products have been affected, drawing retaliation from China.
U.S. President Donald Trump has taken particular issue with the dumping of foreign steel and aluminum — which also led to the imposition of tariffs on Canada earlier this year.
China has been critical of the new trilateral deal, saying the U.S. is trying to undermine its trade with Canada and Mexico.
Under Section 32, USMCA nations would be given the opportunity to review the text of any trade deal between an USMCA partner and a non-market country before it's signed, and also would retain the option of pulling out of the USMCA in response.
Freeland said that ability to trigger a six-month withdrawal period without cause is nothing new, since it was in the original NAFTA deal.
However, when asked repeatedly about why the non-market economy clause was added to the USMCA, she struggled to answer.
"It's there because it was part of the negotiations," she said.