Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday he told President Donald Trump during a phone conversation earlier in the day that renewed U.S. tariffs on imports of Canadian aluminum would hurt the economies of both countries.
The issue of the possible tariffs against Canadian aluminum threatens to add another irritant in the relations between Ottawa and Washington just as the two countries are celebrating the coming into force of a new North American free trade agreement that also includes Mexico.
The threat of renewed tariffs came after Canadian producers, unable to shut down production at their smelters, which must run 24/7, and faced with pandemic-related shutdowns of many of their manufacturing customers, opted to make a more generic form of aluminum and ship it to warehouses in the United States.
That alarmed certain U.S. smelter owners and operators, who have been urging the U.S. trade representative’s office to slap fresh levies on the “surge” of imports or raw aluminum from Canada.
The pandemic “caused certain disruption in the aluminum sector that is starting to realign itself, given the economies are starting up again and manufacturing is getting going,” Trudeau said after his call with Trump.
“I impressed upon him that it would be a shame to see tariffs come in between our two countries at a time where we’re celebrating NAFTA , and at a time where we want our businesses and our manufacturers to get going as quickly as possible,” Trudeau said.
“We pledged to keep working on it together.”
This morning, I spoke on the phone with @POTUS Trump. We focused on the new NAFTA, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing situation in Hong Kong. We also discussed the Black Lives Matter movement and the need to end systemic racism. More on our call: https://t.co/hjOtnjNbvm pic.twitter.com/3ddXndf6wr
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) July 13, 2020
The two leaders also discussed a host of other issues, including “the Black Lives Matter movement, and the need to combat systemic racism” and the the ongoing situation in Hong Kong and China’s imposition of a new national security law on the territory, according to a readout of the phone call released by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Trudeau also thanked Trump for his support to free Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who’ve been detained by China since Dec. 10, 2018 in an apparent retaliation for Canada’s detention of Huawei exec Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request.
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