Canada and the United States remain “quite far apart” despite “working very hard” to resolve the lingering softwood lumber trade dispute between the two North American neighbours, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday.
Speaking to reporters following her keynote address at the International Economic Forum of the Americas in Montreal, Freeland repeated that Ottawa remains “absolutely confident of the rightness” of its position and will continue to vigorously defend Canada’s softwood lumber industry.
Freeland said she is in “very regular contact” with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to discuss the file.
“Our positions are still quite far apart,” Freeland said. “But I think that talking is always a good thing and that is something that we are doing very actively and energetically, and I do want to underscore the fact that Secretary Ross is very personally engaged in this file.”
Tough negotiations ahead
Former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Joe Clark said Canada could expect a very tough negotiation.
“The Americans will bargain as intensely as they always do,” Clark said speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the International Economic Forum of the Americas in Montreal. “There is a wildcard in the American scene right now, none of us can judge what that is.”
Clark, who helped steer the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations to a final agreement, said nobody knows whether the context within which decisions are made by the Trump administration will “return to something approaching normal.”
Nevertheless, here are “good grounds for reasonable parties” to strike a deal, Freeland said.
“We remain of the view that a negotiated settlement would be the best outcome for Canadians and Americans — very much including, by the way, middle-class Americans who want to buy a house or it’s summertime maybe they want to build their deck,” Freeland said. “The fact is the U.S. economy needs our lumber, the U.S. industry on its own does not produce enough lumber for the U.S. economy.”
‘Punitive and without foundation’
In late April, the U.S. set countervailing levies on Canadian softwood lumber producers ranging from three to 24 per cent on allegations that they are unfairly subsidized, accusations that Ottawa and the Canadian industry rejects.
“We believe that countervailing levies imposed by the [Department of] Commerce are punitive and without foundation,” Freeland said. “And we are and will continue to vigorously defend the softwood lumber industry of Quebec and all of Canada. It’s worth remembering as Canadians that on past occasions we have won at every level, we are confident we will continue to do so.”
A decision on anti-dumping duties is set to be announced June 23 that could add another 10 per cent to those tariffs.
On June 1, Ottawa announced a financial aid package worth $867 million for the lumber sector to weather the impact of the duties. But some fear that could embolden arguments from the U.S. lumber lobby that its counterparts in Canada are unfairly subsidized.
With files from The Canadian Press
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