(México City) Canada and Mexico celebrated a major trade victory over the United States on Wednesday as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau concluded a trilateral summit aimed at charting a course for North American excellence.
The panel’s decision, known for months but made public after the summit ended, declared the US interpretation of foreign content rules for automobiles ‘inconsistent’ with the terms of the Canada-US Agreement –Mexico (CUSMA).
The decision ended Mr. Trudeau’s last day in the Mexican capital, which involved strengthening Canada’s economic and diplomatic ties with Mexico, a relationship too often obscured by the country that separates them.
“We’re going to look forward to working with the United States – that’s what this dispute resolution process is all about,” said International Trade Minister Mary Ng, who was among those traveling. with Mr. Trudeau
CUSMA, the successor to NAFTA, has increased the permitted “regional value content” for auto parts to 75% from 62% previously – a rule designed to give the three countries a larger share of the automotive sector. everyone’s automobile manufacturing.
“It was about being able to create and produce more auto parts in North America,” said Ms.me Ng.
“This panel ruling is about…the interpretation of how it was calculated, so we’re happy with the conclusion, because it’s consistent with Canada’s understanding, and we’ll work with the Americans.” »
Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association of Canada, applauded the decision as an affirmation of what the hard-won concessions in the deal were meant to represent.
“The decision is important for the merits of the case – that the motoring rules we agreed to after three years of tough negotiations will stand,” Mr Volpe said.
“This demonstrates that the CUSMA dispute resolution mechanism does not bend to politics or influence. »
Even the US Chamber of Commerce applauded the decision for providing some certainty to the deeply integrated auto sector. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative, however, did not immediately respond to questions from the media on Wednesday.
Mr. Trudeau, who spoke before the official publication of the decision, did not speak about it directly. He did, however, channel the spirit of trilateral cooperation when asked about Joe Biden’s enduring protectionist streak, something that seems to disappear whenever the US president finds himself on the international stage.
“There is no contradiction between looking out for the well-being of workers in their own country and working closely with friends and allies like Mexico and Canada,” Trudeau said.
“If there really was a contradiction between standing up for America first and working with your friends, the previous president would have succeeded in scrapping NAFTA. But he did not do it. »
It was, of course, Donald Trump, whose fiercely protectionist approach never seemed far from Mr. Trudeau’s mind throughout the three-day summit.
On Monday, Trudeau candidly acknowledged how close the former president was to ending the era of free trade in North America. And on Wednesday, he portrayed Canada not just as an architect of the deal, but also as its primary guardian.
As the world struggles to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and its far-reaching residual economic effects, he called on potential foreign investors to take a leap of faith similar to the early NAFTA pioneers. of the 1990s.
“Let’s think like people did when they signed the original NAFTA,” he told leaders and scholars earlier in the day during a speech hosted by Invest in Canada, an agency of the federal government to stimulate foreign direct investment.
“They couldn’t have known about all the changes and challenges we would face. But they knew that growing our economies and deepening our ties would give us all the stability and certainty we needed to weather any storm. »
They also knew that an integrated continental economy would bring together all opportunities, he said, “including ones they couldn’t even imagine yet.”
In the dark days of the Trump era, he added, it was Canada and Mexico that kept North American trade alive.
“Motivated by protectionist, isolationist and nativist policies, [l’administration Trump était] willing to put millions of jobs at stake in each of our countries. Our historic trade agreement was in jeopardy, so we reopened it,” Trudeau said.
“During the negotiations, the United States repeatedly tried to pit Canada and Mexico against each other. But Canada has always believed that our greatest strength lay in the fact that the three parties negotiated in unison. We understood that North American free trade was good and fair integration across the continent. »
Mr. Biden left the summit on Tuesday evening, clearing the way for Mr. Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to tout the virtues of stronger ties between their two countries.
Together they presided over the signing ceremony of a bilateral declaration on indigenous cooperation and spent several hours meeting face to face on new ways to strengthen their relationship.
Their new “Canada-Mexico Action Plan” aims to strengthen trade and investment ties, strengthen supply chains, advance gender equality and adopt a common approach to Indigenous reconciliation.
“We are very close sister nations,” López Obrador said in Spanish at the start of the summit.
“We belong to North America, we have a lot in common and, above all, a very good relationship of cooperation and friendship. »
Tuesday, Messrs. Trudeau and Biden ironed out a pair of issues, including a fix for the Nexus traveler program — which is currently awash in a backlog of more than 220,000 applications — and plans for the president to visit Canada in March.
Nevertheless, as the United States continued to press Canada to play a leading role in the fight against endemic gangs and lawlessness in Haiti, Mr. Trudeau managed all week to avoid make firm commitments beyond expanded sanctions.