Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Mark Wiseman says he wants Canada to be more “top-of-mind” for Americans, while downplaying the urgency around the July 1 deadline for the renewal of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
“Americans don’t wake up every day thinking about Canada,” Wiseman said during a fireside chat with BMO CEO Darryl White at the Canadian Club in Toronto on Monday.
“We are obsessed, for good reason, with the United States. They’re not obsessed with us,” he went on, adding that the U.S. is facing political and economic challenges — including the war in the Middle East — that don’t involve Canada.
The comments follow remarks made by U.S. President Donald Trump at the Oval Office last week that he is “not looking to renew” the trade deal with Canada and Mexico.
“We don’t need anything that Canada has,” Trump said. “But they need everything that we have.”
Trump also called CUSMA “a great deal” because it gives him “the right to terminate.”
CUSMA allows participating nations to withdraw from it on six months’ notice.
Wiseman, one of the country’s leading trade negotiators, encouraged the audience not to worry about the looming CUSMA deadline because, even if the agreement isn’t renewed, it will remain in place until 2036.
“When we’re talking about the renewal of CUSMA, we’re really talking about an extension, or a potential extension, of the agreement for an additional six years to 2042,” he said.
The July 1 deadline will kick-start an annual review period if the nations decide not to extend the deal.
“The U.S. has put certain issues on the table that it would like to see modified. We’ve put issues on the table,” Wiseman added. “It doesn’t matter if we work through those issues and conclude that review on July 2, or conclude that review in January, or if we never, frankly, conclude the review.”
Still, Wiseman emphasized that sectoral tariffs on steel and aluminum continue to hurt the Canadian economy.
“We’ve got to deal with (them) as quickly and effectively as we can.”
According to an RBC analysis, also published on Monday, manufacturing production is 3.5 per cent below 2024 with significant declines in steel and wood products.
Even with CUSMA remaining in force for another decade, economists see the absence of a renewal as a risk to the economy because it could prolong trade uncertainty.
Despite Trump’s comments last week, Wiseman said “no one” has suggested intention to withdraw from the agreement.
“Ambassador (Jamieson) Greer has publicly come out and said that the U.S. — like Canada, like Mexico — wants to preserve those foundational pillars of the CUSMA agreement,” he said.
In response to Trump’s claim that the U.S. doesn’t need Canada, Wiseman said: “The president is the negotiator in chief, and he’s good at it.”
“You can take the negotiator in chief’s position,” he added. “What I can tell you, just between us, behind the scenes, stuff is getting done on a rational, collaborative, intelligent and businesslike basis.”
