Jamieson Greer says he doesn't see where trade spat with Canada ends...

Donald Trump's top trade official points out his team is in Mexico and not Canada for negotiations.

Despite the views of some Canadians, when Jamieson Greer, Donald Trump United States Trade Representative speaks, I listen. Yesterday, I spent more than an hour listening to him and it was worthwhile.

From the beginning, I have encouraged Canadians to listen to what our American counterparts are saying about us and about trade. Doing so, and doing so with an open mind, should give us a better understanding of where they are coming from.

If we understand what they want, it puts us in a better spot to negotiate a better deal for Canada.

Listening to them and trying to understand them doesn’t mean we have to agree with them or accept their arguments. Understanding what the other side is saying should be preferable to both sides simply talking past each other with no understanding of what the other is saying.

I fear for many Canadians, that is how they have approached Donald Trump and our trade spat with the United States.

They raise dairy access and we scream that we won’t get rid of supply management even though that isn’t what they asked. They tell us that the Digital Services Tax or the Online Streaming Act violate CUSMA and we yell back that we are a sovereign country and will do what we want.

Meanwhile, by all accounts from Canadians and Americans I speak to, our trade talks with the USA continue to go nowhere and we have put little of substance on the table whether it is on what we want or in response to their issues.

Jamieson Greer spoke at length about trade, tariffs and getting deals on Tuesday.

He did not speak at length about Canada.

In an event with the Council on Foreign Relations hosted by Michael Froman, Barack Obama’s USTR, they mostly talked about China. Canada was brought up, Canada was mentioned, but it wasn’t in the best of terms.

“The U.S. is going to have tariffs,” Greer said. “As long as we have a giant trade deficit, we’re going to have tariffs.”

Greer spoke about wanting to have trading partners in North America, in “our hemisphere” that are aligned. That he wants to source products from partners here rather than in Asia or Europe.

That should be good news for Canada, if we will partner with them. The question is whether we will partner or continue down the path of rupture.

Clearly, Michael Froman has been listening to Mark Carney’s words, because Froman asked Greer about that rupture.

“How serious is the fissures? Are the fissures with Canada, the rupture with Canada? And can you envisage USMCA being transformed into separate agreement with Mexico, separate agreement with Canada, or no agreement with Canada?” Froman asked.

“Well, I would say that, you know, the team right now is in Mexico. My team, and they’re negotiating with Mexico on a bilateral basis,” Greer said.

“I speak with some regularity to my Canadian counterparts.”

Greer then talked about the state of the relationship at the moment.

Our sense is that we have with Canada, you know, some some trade challenges, which, you know, to some people, you know, some people may think, oh, those are just irritants to us. They’re, they’re significant, and the reality is, we’ve spent the past year and a half going to countries, telling them we have to have some level of tariff on the globe to deal with this giant death that we’re dealing with, to try to reshore, etc.

And, and most countries have, you know, I know grudgingly, but they said we understand your policy, we understand so we’re going to negotiate with you, we’re going to remove some of these tariffs and non tariff barriers, etc. Canada’s approach has been different.

They like China retaliated against the United States. Two countries in the world retaliated against us, People’s Republic of China and Canada, so they’re just, they’re just in a different spot, and it’s, it’s hard to see necessarily where that ends.

He added that trade in things like energy and fertilizer continues to be good but that manufactured goods is a challenge. He then went on about the auto sector and said a lot of things that just aren’t true, but it is a simplified view that is even shared by politicians in our country that the auto industry here really just started in the 1960s with the auto pact.

That’s something I’ve been fighting against unsuccessfully for a while, but I’ll leave that for another day.

The conversation is more than an hour, but being the geek that I am, I found it interesting.

The part about Canada kicks in at the 37 minute mark but the rest is worth the listen as well.