International Trade Minister Mary Ng said the federal government will not be making concessions on supply management amid its ongoing turbulent relationship with the Trump administration regarding tariff threats.
Ng made the comments during an interview with CTV’s Power Play host Vassy Kapelos while discussing a variety of trade issues now faced by the country in the wake of President Trump’s inauguration.
Canada was granted a one-month reprieve from Trump’s 25-per-cent tariffs on all Canadian imports after a series of negotiations took place Monday between Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Given the current uncertainty around cross-border trade, Kapelos poked Ng about whether the federal government had any intention of moving the goalposts on supply management such as allowing U.S. dairy producers access to Canadian markets.
The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement is up for renegotiation next year and Ng responded by saying that when CUSMA was negotiated in 2018, so was the dairy sector.
“This agreement negotiated by President Trump was touted as one that worked for the Americans, worked for Canadians and worked for Mexicans,” said Ng. “Supply management was very much a part of those negotiations on a balance of a whole bunch of things.”
According to Ng, the Americans have “absolutely taken advantage of the dispute settlement system that is a part of our trade agreement.”
In regards to dairy, Ng said the dispute settlement panel had previously ruled in Canada’s favour on this matter, stating that Canada had been living up to the obligations of the trade agreement.
U.S. dairy producers have long expressed their dissatisfaction over their lack of access to the Canadian market, even after Canada agreed to grant them access to about 3.5 per cent of the country’s domestic market during the negotiations six years ago.
CUSMA is up for renegotiation next year, with many speculating how Canada will fare given the Trump administration’s strong mandate to put America first.
“So for people, for example, who have a stake in the dairy industry, farmers, for example in Quebec, your message to them tonight is, ‘you’re not going to concede on supply management?’” asked Kapelos.
“Correct,” answered Ng.
However, Trump told reporters earlier this week that Canada has been “very tough to do business with” and that America doesn’t “need them for agricultural products.”
“We have all the agriculture we need,” Trump said. “They don’t take our agricultural product, for the most part, our milk and dairy. A little bit they do, but not much. We take theirs.”
Trump’s commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick also discussed his frustrations with the CUSMA dairy arrangement during his Senate confirmation hearing last week.
“Our farmers, our ranchers and our fishermen are the best in the world, and they are treated poorly,” said Lutnick. “Canada, as we spoke about, treats our dairy farmers horribly. That’s got to end.”
Prior to the 30-day pause on tariffs being announced, the Trudeau government responded by placing retaliatory tariffs on $155 billion of American goods, including alcohol, clothing, appliances, and food products.
Trump responded by saying that he was prepared to further increase tariffs on Canadian imports, accusing Ottawa of playing a “game” by responding with retaliatory measures.
“We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion dollars a year and for what? What do we get out of it? We don’t get anything out of it. I love the people of Canada. I disagree with the leadership of Canada and something’s going to happen there,” said Trump on Monday.
“But if they want to play the game, I don’t mind, we can play the game all they want.”
