Chrystia Freeland

Thursday May 16, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 16, 2019

Freeland renews push to remove steel, aluminum tariffs during Washington trip

July 27, 2018

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is bound for Washington to meet with Trump trade czar Robert Lighthizer in a renewed push to get punitive steel and aluminum tariffs lifted.

The meeting at the United States trade representative’s Washington office is to take place on Wednesday but Freeland will also venture to Capitol Hill for a meeting with the influential Republican chair of the Senate finance committee, Chuck Grassley.

“We continue to lobby very assertively for the lifting of the tariffs. We’re at a point where we need to do everything we can and talk to everyone we can about why we see these as unjust,” a senior government source said Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing dispute.

June 1, 2018

The meetings come after a pair of telephone calls on consecutive days late last week between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in which the controversial 25-per-cent duty on Canadian steel and 10-per-cent levy on aluminum was a major subject of conversation.

On Tuesday, Grassley suggested to reporters in a conference call that an end to the tariffs might be close. Last month, Grassley tweeted that Trump must remove the tariffs before the new North American trade deal can be ratified.

Trump imposed them in the first place using a section of U.S. trade law that gives the president powers to put duties on imports on national-security grounds.

Freeland, Trudeau and others in Canadian government have derided the tariffs as absurd, illegal and insulting.

But Freeland has said she’s heartened by the recent comments of both Republican and Democratic American lawmakers who say the new North American trade agreement that includes Mexico can’t be ratified with the “Section 232” tariffs in place. (Global)

 

Saturday January 26, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 26, 2019

Canada ramps up pressure on Venezuela’s Maduro

Top federal officials, perhaps Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself, will be reaching out to key European allies to encourage them to put more pressure on Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, CTV News has learned.

August 28, 2018

The news comes as Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Belgium threatened to recognize Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido as the nation’s interim president if elections aren’t called within eight days.

Canada, the United States and 10 other countries in the Lima Group have already recognized Guaido, who declared himself interim president of the troubled South American country on Wednesday.

Canada played a key role in organizing that declaration. On Saturday, Trudeau spoke with Colombian Ivan Duque Marquez about the situation.

Canada’s representative to the UN, Marc-Andree Blanchard, told a special meeting of the UN Security Council that Canada has “firmly rejected Nicolas Maduro’s illegitimate claim to power,” citing “fraudulent” elections last year.

Russia, meanwhile, accused Canada and the U.S. of encouraging a coup.

For the estimated three million people who have fled Venezuela’s economic and political crisis in recent years, the growing support for Guaido gives them hope that they will one day be able to return home.

William Mesa is a medical student who was forced to leave Venezuela for Colombia four years ago.

“Many Venezuelans were eating on the streets from the garbage,” he told CTV’s Omar Sachedina in Bogota.

In addition to his studies, Mesa also volunteers at a clothing donation facility that helps Venezuelan newcomers, just as he was helped when he fled from neighbouring country. (CTV News) 

 

Tuesday October 2, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 2, 2018

President Trump creates crises, then claims credit for solving them

September 5, 2018

President Trump’s specialty is to create crises and then claim credit for solving them. Last year, for example, he ratcheted up the rhetoric against Kim Jong Un — a.k.a. “Little Rocket Man” — threatening to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea. Trump now claims he and Kim “fell in love” after Kim sent him “beautiful letters,” and that, were it not for this bromance, “you’d be in a war” and “millions of people would have been killed.” In reality, no one thought a second Korean War was likely before Trump took office. That only became a serious risk because of his unhinged rhetoric.

Trump has applied this same template to the North

August 28, 2018

American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he spent years lambasting as “the worst trade deal ever approved.” According to Bob Woodward’s book “Fear: Trump in the White House,” Trump was on the verge of pulling out of NAFTA in April 2017, and had to be talked back from the brink by senior aides. He grudgingly remained in the deal while launching high-pressure negotiations to rework it.

Lo and behold, just ahead of a U.S.-imposed deadline on Sunday night, the United States, Mexico and Canada agreed on a revamped NAFTA. Trump triumphantly proclaimed on Twitter that this was a “wonderful new Trade Deal,” “historic,” and “a great deal for all three countries.” “NAFTA is dead,” said White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. Long live the new United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USMCA).

June 13, 2018

In fact, the biggest change is the name of the trade deal, and it is not an improvement. Just try saying “USMCA.” It does not roll off the tongue the way “NAFTA” did. As for the substance, my Council on Foreign Relations colleague Benn Steil rightly describes the new agreement as “little more than margin edits.”

Trump’s biggest victory was in opening up slightly more of the Canadian dairy market for U.S. exports. This has long been an obsession for him. He complained in June: “Canada charges the U.S. a 270% tariff on Dairy Products! They didn’t tell you that, did they? Not fair to our farmers.” Trump was right about the Canadian tariffs. What he didn’t mention is that the United States still ran a $474 million dairy surplus last year, with U.S. farmers selling five times more dairy goods to Canada than U.S. consumers bought from Canada. In any case, milk products represent just 0.06 percent of U.S.-Canada trade, 99 percent of which was already tariff-free. (Source: Washington Post) 

 

Thursday September 6, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 6, 2018

NAFTA talks resume as questions grow about Trump’s ability to deliver

Canada returns to the NAFTA table in Washington Wednesday after a four-day break in negotiations that appeared to be pretty stressful … for the American side.

August 28, 2018

The Trump administration’s failure to secure a deal before last Friday wasn’t well-received by key voices in Congress, where NAFTA’s fate ultimately will be decided.

By the end of the weekend, the White House seemed to have fallen out with an ally it had hoped would back a revised NAFTA: a union representing millions of working-class Americans, now souring on President Donald Trump’s ability to deliver.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters Wednesday that officials continued their work over the weekend after negotiations broke off Friday. 

“We are looking forward to constructive conversations today,” she said before heading to the offices of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

Fresh signs of perceived weakness in Washington may bolster Canada’s determination to reject a bad deal, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed publicly to do. Trudeau’s team spent the weekend talking to stakeholders and advisers to prepare for this week.

The tone Freeland set early in her public statements during the negotiations — a no-drama approach of working “intensely” and “constructively” and praising the “goodwill” of counterparts — seems to be holding firm.

Work continues to finalize the text before the next Congressional deadline at the end of the month. If all three parties remain serious about a signing ceremony before Mexico’s government changes hands Dec.1, the negotiated text is due by Sept. 30. (Source: CBC) 

 

Tuesday August 28, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday August 28, 2018

Trump tries to put squeeze on Canada as U.S. and Mexico make NAFTA breakthrough

The U.S. and Mexico have come to a preliminary agreement on new North American rules for automotive manufacturing and for other industries — and President Donald Trump is using it to threaten Canada, using a novel tactic to try to pressure Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into a final deal.

August 18, 2018

The U.S.-Mexico deal, announced Monday, had widely been described as a preliminary, informal sub-agreement that would be folded into the broader North American Free Trade Agreement talks.

But the Trump administration, seeking to push Canada into concessions, is describing it as a separate trade agreement, a “United States-Mexico Trade Agreement,” that Canada can either choose to join or not.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said he would “get rid of the name NAFTA,” which he said has a “bad connotation.”

Trump again threatened Canada with auto tariffs.

March 23, 2005

“Canada will start negotiations shortly. I’ll be calling the prime minister very soon. And we’ll start negotiation, and if they’d like to negotiate fairly, we’ll do that.

“You know, they have tariffs of almost 300 per cent on some of our dairy products, and we can’t have that. We’re not going to stand for that.

“I think with Canada, frankly, the easiest thing we can do is to tariff their cars coming in,” Trump said.

“It’s a tremendous amount of money and it’s a very simple negotiation. It could end in one day and we take in a lot of money the following day. But I think we’ll give them a chance to probably have a separate deal. We can have a separate deal or we can put it into this deal.”

On its website, Trump’s administration described the deal with Mexico as a “preliminary agreement in principle.” (Source: Toronto Star)