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Prime Minister Mark Carney will name a new advisory council on Canada and U.S. trade on Tuesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The council will replace the one previously set up by former prime minister Justin Trudeau in early 2025. CBC News is not naming the sources as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The previous advisory group included former premiers, labour leaders, industry stakeholders and diplomats. It’s not clear who Carney will tap for his council.
Trudeau struck a similar advisory committee during the trilateral negotiations that lead to the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term in office. That trade agreement is up for a review this year.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Monday, according to a joint statement released by Greer’s office. That statement indicated that the U.S. and Mexico will hold an “official bilateral negotiating round” in late May.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick blasted Canada’s trade strategy on Friday, saying Prime Minister Mark Carney ‘has a problem with us’ and mocking Carney’s recent trade visit to China. The journalist who asked Lutnick about Canadian trade, Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith, weighed in on Power & Politics.
When asked if Canada has an official start date for negotiations, a spokesperson for Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc didn’t offer a specific timeline but said officials are “engaging on an ongoing basis with their U.S. counterparts.”
“Canada is prepared; we have submitted a number of proposals to the Americans. We are ready to do the work to get to a deal very quickly, and will certainly not be the source of any delay,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Greer had previously floated the idea of breaking CUSMA into separate bilateral deals with Canada and Mexico.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Canada’s ties to the U.S. have become ‘weaknesses’ that must be corrected, in a video posted to YouTube on Sunday morning. Carney said regular updates on Canada’s diversification efforts would follow.
On Sunday, Carney released a video where he said Canada’s ties to the U.S. have become “weaknesses” that must be corrected, pointing out that workers in Canada’s auto, steel and lumber industries remain under threat due to Trump’s tariffs.
“The U.S. has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression,” Carney said in a video posted to YouTube.
“Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become weaknesses — weaknesses that we must correct.”
The prime minister framed his video as a chance to talk to Canadians directly about the threats the country faces — and he said regular updates on Canada’s diversification efforts would be on the way.
