OTTAWA — U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Canadian retaliatory tariffs on American-made products are blocking substantive progress in talks to renew the trilateral North American trade pact, as the July 1 start of the formal USMCA review approaches.
In a Fox Business interview on June 9, Greer said his office is conducting formal negotiations with Mexico but characterized Canada as presenting obstacles. “They have some retaliatory tariffs still in effect, and that makes it a problem for us to negotiate,” Greer said, according to remarks reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Greer did not specify which Canadian tariffs he considers a problem. Representatives of the USTR did not respond to questions seeking further details, the Journal reported.
Canada maintains tariffs on U.S.-made steel, aluminum, and automobiles, imposed in response to U.S. duties on foreign-made goods. Greer and other Trump administration officials have also repeatedly criticized a ban on the sale of U.S. wine and spirits in most Canadian provinces, where liquor retail is controlled by government-owned outlets.
The Distilled Spirits Council, a Washington-based industry group, said the provincial bans contributed to a 63% drop in U.S. alcohol exports to Canada last year.
A spokesman for Dominic LeBlanc, the Canadian minister in charge of U.S. trade, did not respond to a request for comment. LeBlanc met with Greer in Washington during the week of June 1 and described the encounter as positive, saying he presented specific proposals to address Trump administration concerns about Canada. Representatives for USTR did not respond last week to queries seeking comment about that meeting, the Journal reported.
On June 9, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he will not allow U.S. alcohol back on retail shelves in Canada’s most populous province until a new trade deal is in place between Ottawa and Washington. “I can assure you once that deal is done, I’m going to be sitting down and bringing all the booze back on shelves in Ontario, and everyone’s going to be Kumbaya,” Ford said.
The formal review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, signed in 2020, begins July 1. Under the terms of the pact, the three countries can either renew the treaty for another 16 years or decline renewal and subject it to annual reviews for up to a decade, after which the agreement would expire absent a new accord.
As MSI previously reported, Canada formally requested a full 16-year renewal of the trade pact on June 2. Canada formally requests 16-year renewal of North American free trade pact.