(Washington) The dispute between Canada and the United States over the Nexus trusted traveler program should be resolved well before President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meet in December, the Minister of Information said Friday. François-Philippe Champagne Industry.
Posted at 7:48 p.m.
Mr Champagne, who was in Washington to meet with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, said he had raised the issue with his US counterpart as an example of a situation that it would be in the interest of both countries to resolve quickly.
“If I look at the challenges we face, I would say it should be easy to solve, because after all, it’s about making sure the border is as smooth as possible,” he said during of a press conference.
“I certainly hope that we can resolve this problem long before the president and the prime minister (meet). I think there is an understanding on both sides that what we want right now is fluidity,” he added.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to sit down with President Joe Biden when the two leaders meet Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the so-called “Three Amigos” summit in Mexico City in December.
A face-to-face between MM. Trudeau and Biden could be sooner than that, though: Mr. Biden has yet to make his long-promised and often-delayed first visit to Canada since becoming president. White House officials declined to say when that trip might take place.
While Nexus enrollment centers in the United States have been open since April, all 13 centers in Canada have remained closed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
This is because the United States Customs and Border Protection will not send American agents there unless they obtain the same legal protection as their colleagues at ports of entry such as airports and the Canada-US border.
Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, raised her voice last week when she said the Nexus program was ‘held hostage’ as part of a unilateral US effort to renegotiate the terms of the deal .
She went further, calling the US tactics “brutal” and contrary to what has otherwise been a cordial and cooperative relationship with Canada.
Mr. Champagne declined to say whether Mr.me Raimondo was receptive to her concerns about the Nexus program.
“We want to be competitive, we are in a period of high inflation,” he said.
“It is incumbent on us to make sure that we resolve this issue, as we always do with our American friends, to ensure that the agents return to their offices so that these Nexus cards can be issued,” the minister continued.
This is likely a minor dispute compared to Canada’s efforts over the past year to persuade the United States to drop its electric vehicle tax incentive plans that would have excluded cars and trucks made in Canada.
Those efforts paid off in August when Mr. Biden signed into law the Cutting Inflation Act, a multibillion-dollar tax, climate and health spending package that encourages the intake of not just manufactured electric vehicles in Canada, but also those whose batteries are made with essential minerals from trade-friendly countries, including Canada.
Canada should also benefit from the “CHIPS Act”, a new US law designed to help develop a more resilient supply chain and manufacturing base for semiconductors and wean the world off its dependence on from China.
These incentives have already helped launch critical mineral and battery manufacturing projects in Canada, Champagne said.
“It’s in the United States’ interest to make sure that Canada and the United States remain competitive, because if you want resilience in the supply chain, you need Canada to be part of it. equation — there’s no getting around it,” he said.
“In everyone’s mind, Canada is part of the equation,” added the Minister.