The federal government says it is launching public consultations on the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, ahead of next year\u2019s planned review of the North American trade pact.<\/p>\n
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced the consultations Friday in Mexico City, where he and Prime Minister Mark Carney were wrapping up two days of meetings with Mexican officials.<\/p>\n
Ottawa will hear from provinces, territories, industry and workers through the consultations as it gears up to formally review CUSMA in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll see, over the coming weeks, activities and opportunities for Canadians, and for those that are affected by the recent turbulence in the trading relationship, to offer us views on how we should approach the review conversations with the United States and with Mexico,\u201d LeBlanc said.<\/p>\n
An exemption for CUSMA-compliant goods has so far shielded much of Canada\u2019s trade from U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s tariff war, although sectoral duties still exist in the steel, aluminum, automotive and softwood lumber industries.<\/p>\n
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said earlier this week that Trump had hoped to reach a \u201cmuch bigger deal\u201d with Canada that would go beyond renegotiating the current free trade pact.<\/p>\n
LeBlanc said that while Ottawa would sign a \u201cbigger deal\u201d with the U.S. if Washington offered something in Canada\u2019s interests, his short-term focus is on addressing the sectoral tariffs. He said he expects to be back in Washington for further trade talks in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n
Hoekstra was asked during a \u201cfireside chat\u201d in Fredericton about his opinion on how the two countries could get over the \u201cspeed bump\u201d they have hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI may have opinions, my real opinions on dealing with the speed bump, I couldn\u2019t say in public,\u201d Hoekstra replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that the Canadian government comes down on the side of saying, if this is a great relationship, yeah, we\u2019re committed to moving along a path that builds off of what we\u2019ve done for the last 30 years … we also recognize that as a sovereign country, Canada may decide to go a different direction. That\u2019s a Canadian decision, not ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moving forward, Hoekstra said Trump has made it clear the Republican Party is embracing tariffs, and they will be part of its future. He said the \u201cgood news\u201d is that Canada has \u201cthe lowest tariff rate of any country in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Canada thinks of the United States as an \u201cunreliable partner\u201d and is \u201cmad\u201d at it then both countries should look at doing business elsewhere, he said.<\/p>\n
Carney announced a new economic and security agreement on Wednesday with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.<\/p>\n
The agreement was billed as a comprehensive strategic partnership. It includes plans to build infrastructure, such as ports, rail and energy corridors, while tackling crime and protecting the environment.<\/p>\n
Carney and Sheinbaum emphasized that the new deal will \u201ccomplement\u201d CUSMA.<\/p>\n
The prime minister said Wednesday he\u2019s confident the two countries\u2019 individual reviews and collective discussions on CUSMA will \u201creinforce the strength of our economies, our individual economies, and the fact that we are stronger together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carney visited the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ferrovalle train yard on Friday \u2014 his only scheduled event for the day \u2014 before departing Mexico City for Ottawa.<\/p>\n
\u2014 With files from Craig Lord in Ottawa and Hina Alam in Fredericton<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government says it is launching public consultations on the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[45,49,48,46,47,44,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-156295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-national","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}