Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump are to discuss continental trade and their shared challenges with China in a meeting in Washington next week.
The Prime Minister’s Office says the leaders will use next Thursday’s meeting to talk about the ratification of the new North American trade agreement and outstanding trade disputes between Canada and the U.S.
This story by The Canadian Press appeared in Automotive News Canada.
While Trudeau and Trump have crossed paths at various international events in the last year, and had several telephone conversations, this will be their first substantive meeting since the U.S. president insulted the prime minister a little over a year ago after departing the G7 in Quebec.
The two leaders have continued to engage because both governments needed to wrestle a conclusion out of the often-acrimonious renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump forced on Canada and Mexico.
With the recent removal of U.S. tariffs on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum imports, there is renewed momentum to ratify the new trade pact.
Mexico’s Senate is expected to give its final legal approval to the new deal next week, but a delicate political dance continues between Ottawa and Washington over ratification. Trudeau has tabled the government’s ratification bill and it is winding its way through Parliament — slowly — ahead of next week’s adjournment of the House of Commons.
