{"id":608890,"date":"2026-04-16T22:15:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T22:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/608890\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T22:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T22:15:14","slug":"leblanc-says-canada-wont-be-the-source-of-any-delay-in-renewing-cusma-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/608890\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBlanc says Canada \u2018won\u2019t be the source of any delay\u2019 in renewing CUSMA – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc<\/a> says his side \u201ccertainly won\u2019t be the source of any delay\u201d in resolving negotiations on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on free trade (CUSMA) that are expected to culminate this summer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Speaking to Global News after appearing at the House of Commons standing committee on international trade Thursday, LeBlanc acknowledged public comments made earlier this month by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer \u2014 who said it was unlikely that \u201call issues\u201d surrounding the trade pact will be resolved by July 1<\/a> \u2014 were also made to him privately.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a \u201cdrop-dead date\u201d for a deal to be reached, LeBlanc said, but he added Canada is ready to move as soon as the Americans are.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe certainly won\u2019t be the source of any delay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ready to do the work to get to a deal very quickly. We\u2019re prepared. We have submitted a number of proposals to the Americans. We continue to have a number of constructive meetings at all levels. So we are very much in conversations with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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LeBlanc told the committee he had a 45-minute phone call last Monday with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He would not share details of their conversation but said it was \u201cpositive.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The minister added other conversations have been ongoing behind the scenes between U.S. Ambassador Mark Wiseman, Canada\u2019s new chief U.S. trade negotiator Janice Charette and their various American counterparts.<\/p>\n

July is the required deadline for the U.S. to notify Canada and Mexico about its plans for CUSMA.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tU.S. trade rep says CUSMA talks may run past deadline\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The CUSMA review sets up a three-way choice for each country: they can renew the deal for another 16 years, withdraw from it, or signal both non-renewal and non-withdrawal \u2014 which triggers an annual review that could keep negotiations going for up to a decade.<\/p>\n

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Both Greer and U.S. President Donald Trump have previously floated the idea of abandoning the trade pact in favour of two separate bilateral agreements. Trump has also mused that CUSMA, which he negotiated during his first term as president, may be irrelevant.<\/p>\n

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LeBlanc told the committee that Canada continues to engage with the Trump administration on reaching a comprehensive agreement that covers both the CUSMA issues and relief for tariff-affected sectors like steel, aluminum, autos and lumber.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not prepared to deal with these things as a one-off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to resolve some of these issues that Ambassador Greer referred to, Canada is ready and willing to do that work, but as part of a deal, a larger agreement that brings relief to sectors of the Canadian economy that are under considerable pressure now and brings greater certainty around the USMCA or CUSMA review process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those conversations were renewed in earnest in March when LeBlanc travelled to Washington to meet with Greer for the first time in months.<\/a><\/p>\n

The U.S. has since outlined a number of ongoing trade issues with Canada, including supply management and policies like the Online Streaming Act.<\/p>\n

LeBlanc reaffirmed Thursday under questioning from the Bloc Quebecois that supply management was not on the table in the CUSMA negotiations.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc says his side \u201ccertainly won\u2019t be the source of any delay\u201d in resolving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,28601,30879,8334,44,714,2845],"class_list":{"0":"post-608890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cusma","11":"tag-dominic-leblanc","12":"tag-donald-trump-tariffs","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608890","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=608890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}