GuShiio.com ① Canada’s Minister of International Trade Wu Fengyi said that in the face of US tariff threats, Canada hopes to deepen economic ties with the EU and safeguard global trade rules;
② The trade agreement between Canada and the European Union has brought positive results. Key minerals and small businesses will be the focus of cooperation. Canada is moving towards the goal of increasing exports from non-U.S. markets by 50%.
Financial Union, February 9 (Editor Niu Zhanlin)On Saturday local time, Canadian Minister of International Trade Wu Fengyi said that in the face of US tariff threats, Canada hopes to deepen its economic ties with the EU and safeguard global trade rules.
Since 2017, the EU and Canada have signed a free trade agreement, bilateral trade has increased by 65%, services trade and investment flows have also increased significantly, and a raw materials partnership has been established in 2021.
Wu Fengyi met with EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic in Brussels on the same day to discuss business promotion work and seek to build a transatlantic values trade alliance to withstand the impact of unilateral protectionism.
Wu Fengyi emphasized that the trade agreement between the EU and Canada has brought positive results, but there is still more work that can be done. To create better conditions for companies from other countries to enter Canada, the EU also needs the same.
She said that key minerals and small businesses will be key areas for cooperation with the EU, which is particularly eager to establish partnerships to obtain metals critical to the energy transition-cobalt, lithium and nickel.
Wu Fengyi said: “If you think of Canada as a superpower in the energy field, for example, in the fields of hydrogen or renewable energy. So we have been working with our trading partners, especially Europeans.”
At the same time, Canada is also pushing to diversify its exports and set a goal in 2018 to increase exports from non-U.S. markets by 50% by 2025. Wu Fengyi said that Canada is moving towards achieving or even exceeding this goal.
Canada signed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements with Indonesia and Ecuador in December last year and last week respectively, and is currently vigorously promoting them in the Indo-Pacific region. Next week, the trade minister will lead a delegation of more than 200 companies to visit Australia, Singapore and Brunei.
Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on goods imported from Mexico and Canada, including a 10% tax increase on Canadian energy products. This week, the United States agreed to give Canada a 30-day grace period for tariffs. Wu Fengyi said that if the United States imposes additional tariffs, Canada may file a complaint at the World Trade Organization.
“We will consider all options available to Canada because Canada is a country that believes in a rules-based trading system,” she added.
However, Wu Fengyi pointed out that Canada will continue to work hard to persuade the Trump administration to abandon its tariff plan, in part through engaging U.S. states with which Canada has important trade relations. “It’s really important that Americans themselves come to the conclusion that tariffs will actually make life more expensive for Americans.”
