OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada believes members of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement have an opportunity to create a policy more closely aligned with China, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Friday.
Freeland made his comments when asked by reporters about US and Canadian fears that China could use the deal as a back door to sell cheap goods to North America.
Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, planned to withdraw Mexico from the free trade agreement and sign a bilateral agreement with the US, which accounts for three-quarters of Canada’s exports.
“We think that today, there is an opportunity for all countries (the USMCA) to work together to have a law that is more consistent with China, to protect all of our workers and to ensure that we are supporting each other in this important effort.”, said Freeland.
Canada and the United States have slapped tariffs on Chinese electric cars and steel, prompting what they say is Beijing’s over-capacity policy.
Freeland reiterated that what Canada wanted was for the USMCA to remain a trilateral agreement.
(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee, editing by David Ljunggren and Rod Nickel)