Trump's team cannot 'dictate the terms' of CUSMA talks, Mark Carney says

“We’re not going to make a series of concessions or agree to a series of things that aren’t in the interest of the Canadian economy, Canadian businesses, Canadian workers, just to get to a table and have a statement appear on a website in the United States, to then receive a whole second list of things that they’re going to want,” said LeBlanc.

Appearing remotely at the Globe and Mail Intersect conference, LeBlanc said Ottawa is prepared to deal with the list of irritants between Canada and the U.S., “and we’re happy to sit down and go through that with them, but it’s got to be part of a larger, more comprehensive arrangement.”

Carney on his way into a caucus meeting said Canada and the U.S. each have demands as the decision to review or renew the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal looms. “It’s a negotiation,” he said.

Radio-Canada, quoting unnamed sources, reported Wednesday the U.S. is making demands akin to an “entry fee” in order to get to the negotiating table.

The prime minister did not dispute that characterization, but dismissed the notion, and suggested the talks must be a give-and-take.

In French, Carney said, “it’s not the case that there’s one demander and another supplicant,” and in English, he added, “It’s not a case of the United States dictates the terms. We have a negotiation, we can come to a mutually successful outcome. It will take some time.”

Canada has made some “counterproposals as well which they’re (the Americans) aware of,” he said. But Carney emphasized issues should be examined at a negotiating table, not ahead of time.

“We understand what some of the Americans would call trade irritants or trade issues are. We have some on our side as well. We’re well prepared around those issues. We will sit down and work through those issues with the broader approach in the negotiation.”

Meanwhile, in Washington two top officials in Trump’s administration expressed ongoing frustration Wednesday with Canada.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said it is “insulting and disrespectful” for Canada to keep American wine and spirits off provincial government-controlled liquor store shelves — which prompted a Democratic senator to accuse Lutnick of insulting Canadians and exacerbating tensions.

Over at the congressional ways and means committee U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer said the Canadian government refuses to address repeated  American demands that more U.S. dairy products be given access to Canadian markets, and shrugs off its concerns about U.S. alcohol sales being curtailed.

Canadians are “happy to talk to us about adjustments to USMCA and different things like that, but they have made no commitments” on dairy, he said, nor on U.S. alcohol sales, with Canada claiming it’s provincial jurisdiction.

“We’re kind of at the end of our rope and just asking for them to do this. Think about this, right? There are two countries that have retaliated economically against United States in the past year, the People’s Republic of China and Canada. So that’s kind of the company that they’re running in,” Greer said, adding there may have to be “an enforcement action” to deal with the ban on alcohol sales, without specifying what the U.S. would do.

At the Globe conference in Toronto, Premier Doug Ford, who has banned U.S. wine and spirits from LCBO shelves for more than a year in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs, stressed that prohibition will remain until the American levies are gone.

“Well, I’d do it in the heartbeat, folks, but when he’s destroying our auto sector, putting in jeopardy tens of thousands of jobs … and going after our steel sector, aluminum sector, our lumber sector, our dairy sector, and he expects us to sit back and roll over?” the premier told Stone, blasting Trump.

“You never roll over to a bully. You confront them head on. The LCBO, that’s one tool,” he said to spontaneous applause, referring to the provincial booze giant that is one of the world’s largest alcohol retailers and a huge market for California wine and Kentucky bourbon.

“We have to wait until the USMCA is renewed. I’m sorry, folks, I don’t trust President Trump,” he said, adding Canada should not pay any entry fee for trade talks and implored people to rally behind Carney.

LeBlanc, for his part, said the Americans have made clear global tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and other sectors will not be completely lifted.

“They say the sectoral tariffs, to some extent, will remain in place. We should be realistic. They have not taken anybody to zero, made a deal that takes those tariffs to zero,” he said. But there could be significant reductions in, for example, the 50 per cent levy on steel and aluminum, he said.

Those had almost been resolved when the two countries were exchanging “term sheets” on a deal in October before the U.S. suspended talks after Trump complained about Ford’s Ontario government ad blitz with 1987 video of former president Ronald Reagan warning against tariffs.

Carney and LeBlanc were echoing comments made a day earlier by Canada’s lead trade negotiator Janice Charette who listed “significant concessions” Canada has already made: lifting most of its counter-tariffs against the U.S., dropping the digital services tax, and spending heavily to enhance border security.

LeBlanc said elimination of the digital services tax was not only abolished, “the money was reimbursed with interest to American companies, some of whom had already charged that to their customers, their clients. So check the box. That’s done.”

“They wanted the retaliatory tariffs lifted. That was also done. So at one point, there’s an obligation for all of us to sit down, we think, recommit quickly to a trilateral arrangement, which is in the economic interest of all three countries.”

Other Conservative MPs, who did not repeat Poilievre’s line, earlier acknowledged the dilemma facing the Liberal government.

Conservative MP Greg McLean told reporters, “I appreciate where they (Ottawa) are on this, and it’s going to be very complicated, but they’ve got to fulfil their strategy at the end of the day, and some of that strategy, of course, is going to have to be kept behind closed doors. So respect that, and respect the fact that they’re going to have a pretty tough negotiating session.”

With a file from Raisa Patel