Prime Minister Mark Carney said he had a long call with U.S. President Donald Trump and that the two countries are closer to a trade deal, but reiterated that his government has a red line on the auto sector.
Carney said ensuring a viable auto sector is “one of the fundamental issues” in trade negotiations with Washington.
Carney said that finalizing a deal on the auto sector would benefit both the United States and Canada, as the U.S. market partially relies on Canadian manufacturers.
“It’s absolutely in the interest of course of Canadian workers, Canadian auto sector, but very much the U.S. as well,” he said on Nov. 14 in Manila, Philippines, where he is attending the ASEAN summit.
Carney also told reporters that he had recently spoken at length by phone with Trump, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
“We are making progress. There is the possibility of a deal, a bilateral deal. But we’re not yet there,” he said.
In his first comments following the breakdown of talks on Aug. 21, Carney said on Aug. 22 that talks collapsed partially because Washington wanted to exclude heavy- and medium-duty trucks from tariff relief.
Greer confirmed that heavy trucks would be excluded from a tariff-relief deal, saying that Washington’s goal is to bring back factories to the United States.
“I understand why the Canadians want to have as much as they can get and try to expand concessions from the U.S. But we are focused on doing what’s good for America and accommodating Canada to the extent we can,” he said during an Aug. 26 interview with CBC.
Trump also said recently that a potential deal between the two countries is close.
“We’ve been losing money for many years with Canada, 70, 75 years. So we are now very close to having a deal,” Trump said on Nov. 1.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
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