Semi-trailers idle on the Córdova-Américas International Bridge as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, June 7, 2019.Christian Torres/The Associated Press
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is calling on Mexico to match trade tariffs on Chinese imports and says Canada and the United States should consider striking their own bilateral free trade deal if that doesn’t happen.
The Premier’s missive at Mexico comes after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency with a promise to reopen the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement when it is up for review in 2026. The USMCA replaced the North America free-trade agreement and came into effect in 2020.
Mr. Ford said since signing onto the new deal, Mexico has become a “backdoor for Chinese cars, auto parts and other products into Canadian and American markets” and says the country is hurting Canadian and American jobs in the process.
“If Mexico won’t fight transshipment by, at the very least, matching Canadian and American tariffs on Chinese imports, they shouldn’t have a seat at the table or enjoy access to the largest economy in the world,” Mr. Ford said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Instead, we must prioritize the closest economic partnership on Earth by directly negotiating a bilateral U.S.-Canada free trade agreement that puts U.S. and Canadian workers first.”
Canada last month imposed a 100-per-cent tariff on Chinese-made EVs, as well as a 25-per-cent tariff on steel and aluminum products from China, joining forces with the United States and Europe against what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called China’s “unfair” trade approach.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a protectionist platform, promising a 10-per-cent to 20-per-cent universal tariff on all imports to the United States, and much steeper levies on Chinese goods and other products he claims are undercutting U.S. manufacturing.
This risks sparking an international trade war, with tit-for-tat retaliation from other countries. And it poses a huge risk to Canada’s trade-dependent economy, which sends more than 70 per cent of its exports to the U.S. – worth about $650-billion in 2023.
In 2018, during his first term as president, Mr. Trump imposed 25-per-cent tariffs on imports of Canadian steel and 10 per cent on aluminum. Canada responded with its own retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. The trade war died down in 2019 when Washington agreed to remove the tariffs. But in the summer of 2020, the Trump administration reinstated them on certain Canadian aluminum products, before agreeing to drop them a few months later.
