OTTAWA—Prime Minister Mark Carney said it doesn’t hurt to have Conservatives travelling to the U.S. at a time when cross-border trade talks are on the rocks, but it doesn’t necessarily help either.
Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, who has a personal friendship with U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, was on his second self-assigned mission to Washington again this week. His trip follows Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s travel to the U.S. last month, where he went to New York, Texas, and Michigan but not to the D.C. capital.
Carney was asked Thursday if such trips help or hurt his own government’s efforts negotiating with the U.S. under President Donald Trump.
Speaking in Oakville where he touted the spring economic update’s boost for skilled trade workers, the prime minister said Canada and the U.S. are “free countries” and “people can go where they wish.”
But Carney added that “it has not been our experience that people have gone to Washington and have learned anything new, nor has it been that they have learned everything that is either being discussed on the table or where the negotiations are.”
Carney’s government insists that there are ongoing talks at a high-level with his ministers and officials in Trump’s administration. Canada wants to lift sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos, lumber ahead of a review of the continental free trade pact where the prime minister says he wants to reach a substantive and comprehensive agreement on trade irritants.
But substantive negotiations have not yet been undertaken.
Carney underscored that only one party can negotiate directly towards any future resolution of the trade dispute.
“In the end, there’s one negotiator for Canada, and that is the Government of Canada. Our interlocutors in the United States are generous people. They’re generous with their time, and it’s good of them to meet a host of Canadians coming down.
“But in the end, they know, and we know that we’re the negotiators.”
The Canadian Press reported Thursday that the U.S. continues to warn Canada there is no going back to tariff-free days.
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Canadians looking for insights into the future of bilateral trade that “America First” is policy, not a slogan, and they should not expect a return to the way things were, the news organization reported.
Sources who attended a roundtable with Trump’s trade czar in Washington on Tuesday told The Canadian Press that Greer was measured and pragmatic as he laid out the administration’s policy goals ahead of the coming review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico-Agreement on trade.
About 40 people, including Jivani, and Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. Mark Wiseman attended the event hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Canada.
With files from Canadian Press
