In what comes as a setback for Canada, it failed to receive assurances that President-elect Donald Trump will back away from his stand on imposing tariffs on all products from Ottawa. On Friday, Canada's Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump's pick for commerce secretary, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Trump's nominee to lead the interior department. Canadians have termed the talks "productive" and added that further discussions would follow. However, the United States remains fixated on the US trade deficit with Canada.
“Minister LeBlanc and Minister Joly had a positive, productive meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Howard Lutnick and Doug Burgum, as a follow-up to the dinner between the Prime Minister and President Trump last month,” said Jean-Sébastien Comeau, a spokesman for LeBlanc.
Comeau added that both ministers outlined the measures in Canada's billion-dollar plan to increase security at the border and reiterated “the shared commitment to strengthen border security as well as combat the harm caused by fentanyl to save Canadian and American lives.”
Trump's promise to impose tarriffs on Canada
During his election campaign, Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian products if Canada does not stem what he calls a flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States — even though far fewer of each cross into the US from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump has also threatened. Comeau added that Lutnick and Burgum agreed to relay the information to Trump.
Understanding US-Canada trade deficit
Kirsten Hillman, Canada's ambassador to Washington, said that the US had a trade deficit of USD 75 billion with Canada last year. She added that a third of what Canada sells to the US is energy exports and said there is a deficit when oil prices are high.
Notably, approximately 60% of US crude oil imports and 85% of US electricity imports are from Canada. Alberta alone sends 4.3 million barrels of oil per day to the US which tends to consume about 20 million barrels a day.
(With agency inputs)
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