Canada wants to strengthen its economic relations with the European Union and maintain the rules of global trade in facing the threat of customs duties from the United States, according to the Canadian Minister of Trade, Mary Nug.
The European Union and Canada benefit from the 2017 free trade agreement, which strengthened the trade exchange between them by 65%, and established a partnership in the raw material sector in 2021.
Nug met with the European Union Trade Commissioner, Marus Sivkovic, at a lunch yesterday in Brussels after his meeting with the Director General of the World Trade Organization, Naguzi Oldo Euila in Geneva on Friday.
Important minerals
“Trade agreements are one of the things, and we have seen great numbers, but what can we do more to help Canadian companies enter the (markets) of the 27 member states … What are the other measures that we have to take in Canada to achieve The same thing? “
She added that important minerals and small companies will be among the areas of focus with the European Union, and the European Union, in particular, is keen to establish partnerships to provide minerals that are of great importance for the transformation in the field of energy, namely the cobalt, legium and nickel, to reduce its dependence on China.
Canada also seeks to diversify its exports, and set a goal in 2018 by increasing its exports to countries other than the United States by 50% by 2025, and NG said that its country is on the right path to achieve or overcome this goal.
Ottawa threatened to impose customs duties and take other legal measures in response to the US President’s decision to impose fees on Canada and Mexico a week ago, before Donald Trump commented his decision for 30 days.
The relationship with America
In view of the relationship with the United States, Marie Eng said that her country will continue to try to persuade US President Donald Trump to abandon customs duties partially by communicating with the United States, which has great trade relations with its northern neighbor.
“These states, which do commercial business, have strong relations with Canada. We have done this work because it is important to be in contact with these commercial partners at the state level and at the local level,” she added in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday.
“It is really important for the Americans themselves to reach a conclusion that customs duties will make life more expensive for Americans,” she added.
On the third of this month, Trump announced that European products would be “very soon” targeted with customs duties, after customs duties imposed on products from Canada, Mexico and China.
“They really benefit from us as you know, we have a deficit of $ 300 billion, they do not take our cars or our agricultural products, almost nothing, and we take everything, millions of cars and agricultural products at huge rates,” Trump said at the time.
“I have no timetable, but it will happen very soon,” he added.
