Canada Plans to Launch USD1T Trade Overhaul

(MENAFN) Canada is preparing to unveil a new advisory panel to evaluate its trading relationship with the United States ahead of a formal review of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), according to a report released Monday — a move that signals Ottawa's increasingly urgent drive to reduce economic dependence on its southern neighbor.

Michael Sabia, clerk of Canada's Privy Council, and Janice Charette, Prime Minister Mark Carney's chief trade negotiator to Washington, will co-chair the newly formed council, media reported.

The announcement follows a striking public address by Carney, who declared Sunday that Canada's historically deep ties to the United States had transformed from an asset into a liability.

"The US has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression," he said in a video address.

"Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses, weaknesses that we must correct," he added.

Carney flatly rejected any expectation that Washington would revert to its prior trade stance, offering a blunt assessment of the path forward.

"Hope isn't a plan, and nostalgia is not a strategy," he said, adding that Canada could not afford to bet its future on disruptions from the US suddenly stopping.

In response, Carney laid out an expansive economic and national security blueprint he branded "CanadaStrong" — an ambitious agenda targeting $1 trillion in new investment, the consolidation of the country's 13 fragmented provincial economies into a unified internal market, the construction of new trade and energy corridors, and a doubling of clean energy capacity. Carney also noted that Canada has secured 20 new trade agreements spanning four continents in under a year, asserting the country "has what the world wants."

The stakes are considerable: Canada, the US, and Mexico face a July 1 deadline to renegotiate their trilateral free trade pact. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer signaled earlier this month that separate bilateral agreements with each neighbor may be inevitable.

"We do have to have some kind of a protocol with Mexico and one with Canada separately," Greer said. "Our import export profile is different with each country, and the labor situation in each country is different. The reasons why we have deficits with these countries are different. So it necessitates two separate protocols that we can, I think, layer over those loadbearing pillars of USMCA."

Greer confirmed that negotiations would proceed in parallel with a USMCA Joint Review Meeting set for July 1, leaving the future architecture of North American trade very much in flux.

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