According to Canada’s ambassador in Washington, trade negotiators from Canada and the U.S. were beginning to draft proposals for a potential agreement when U.S. President Donald Trump unexpectedly terminated the discussions last week.
“We were attempting to outline what an initial step in a Canada-U.S. agreement might resemble,” Ambassador Kirsten Hillman shared with the Senate foreign affairs committee on Wednesday.
“We were sharing our perspectives on that and documenting those ideas.”
Trump’s abrupt decision to halt negotiations was announced via a late-night post on social media last Thursday, triggered by an advertisement from the Ontario government that utilized quotes from former U.S. President Ronald Reagan to convey an anti-tariff message to American viewers.
Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S., stated during a Senate committee session on Wednesday that negotiators were attempting to ‘work out the contours of a first step’ for a trade deal before U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly called off discussions last week.
During the committee hearing, Hillman was questioned about the direction of the talks prior to the sudden termination. She noted that while some progress had been achieved since Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent visit to Washington, there were still unresolved issues.
“I don’t want to imply that we were close to an agreement. However, I believe we made more progress in the past few weeks than we have in quite a while,” Hillman remarked.
Earlier on Wednesday, Carney and Trump met face-to-face for the first time since the president ended the negotiations. The two were positioned across from each other at a table and acknowledged each other during a toast at a dinner preceding the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC), but appeared to engage little beyond that.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that his administration would retract the advertisement that seemed to provoke Trump last week — although it had already aired over the weekend, including on U.S. networks during the World Series.
Numerous witnesses reported to CBC News that U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra confronted Ontario’s trade representative in Washington during an event in Ottawa. Former deputy prime minister John Manley shares insights on what this means for the status of trade discussions between both countries. Additionally, former U.S. ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin expressed his sadness over the current state of dialogue between the countries.
Initially, Ottawa aimed to establish a comprehensive trade and security agreement that would include tariff reductions. However, in recent weeks, the focus has shifted to specific sectoral tariffs.
The Globe and Mail reported last week, citing anonymous sources, that an agreement on aluminum and steel might be finalized as early as the APEC summit — though Carney played down that speculation.
“We are in ongoing discussions with the Americans, but I wouldn’t exaggerate the situation,” Carney remarked to reporters in Ottawa last week when questioned about the Globe’s report.
Hillman informed the committee that recent discussions had primarily centered around steel and aluminum, but this did not exclude other sectors.
“The United States expressed a preference to begin with a limited number of issues and advance those, while still considering the others, potentially accelerating discussions on some topics first and then addressing the remaining ones later,” Hillman explained.
“What may have been overlooked in how this has been portrayed or discussed publicly is that it is not simply one [sector] to the exclusion of others. It’s more about the order of discussions — at least according to the U.S. perspective — as they are saying, ‘We would like to prioritize it this way.’”
Tag: rewrite-pending
