Canada seeks stronger EU commerce ties as each areas threatened by Trump tariffs

BRUSSELS, – Canada desires to deepen its financial ties with the EU and uphold world buying and selling guidelines within the face of threatened U.S. tariffs, its commerce minister Mary Ng informed Reuters on Saturday.

The EU and Canada have benefited from a free commerce settlement since 2017, which has boosted bilateral commerce by 65%, and arrange a uncooked supplies partnership in 2021.

Ng met EU commerce chief Maros Sefcovic for a lunch on Saturday following a gathering with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director normal of the World Commerce Group in Geneva on Friday.

“Commerce agreements are one factor, and we’ve got seen actually nice numbers, however what extra can we be doing to assist Canadian companies enter into any of the 27 member states…and what extra can we do to the identical in Canada” Ng stated.

She stated important minerals and smaller companies can be among the many focus areas with the EU. The EU, specifically, is eager to forge partnerships to safe metals which are key for the power transition – cobalt, lithium and nickel – to cut back its dependence on China.

Canada can be pushing to diversify its exports and set itself a goal in 2018 of accelerating non-U.S. exports by 50% by 2025. Ng stated the nation was on monitor to fulfill or exceed the goal. Canada struck commerce offers with Indonesia in December and Ecuador final week and is pushing laborious within the Indo-Pacific area. The minister is main a delegation together with greater than 200 companies to Australia, Singapore and Brunei subsequent week.

“We’re on the desk with the international locations in Southeast Asia, so the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations. I took a really massive delegation of Canadian companies to the Philippines in December, to Indonesia, to markets like Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Korea,” Ng added. Ottawa threatened retaliatory duties and authorized motion in opposition to the USA after President Donald Trump introduced tariffs on Canada and Mexico per week in the past and earlier than he paused their imposition for 30 days. Ng stated Canada may problem Washington on the WTO if tariffs had been imposed.

“We’d think about all the choices can be found to Canada as a result of Canada is a rustic that believes in a rules-based buying and selling system,” Ng stated.

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