National Post (National Edition)
Summit leaders put on happy face
‘Cordial’ talks despite threat of protectionism
CHARLEVOIX, QUEBEC • As day one of the G7 leaders’ summit wrapped up in Charlevoix, Que., Friday, and the minutes until American President Donald Trump’s early departure ticked by, it seemed a victory that talks had not gone completely off the rails.
The best-case scenario for Friday was apparently that Trump, who over the past 24 hours had on multiple occasions expressed vitriolic opposition to his allies’ trade policies on Twitter, would not blow the same kind of steam as he faced their criticisms in person during meetings about the economy.
To the contrary, Trump, talking to reporters before a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday afternoon, said things between Canada and the U.S. are great and that the two were making a lot of progress.
They even exchanged a few loaded jokes. Trump said the Canadians had agreed to “drop all tariffs, all trade barriers.” Trudeau, smiling, said “NAFTA is in good shape.” Pictures of the room show Trump’s advisers looking glum during the exchange.
Discussions had been “cordial” throughout the day, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters late in the afternoon. A senior Canadian official noted that when leaders get together in such a small group, “they’re not talking in tweets.”
If Trump’s mission was to touch down in Quebec, hold recent steel and aluminum tariffs over his counterparts’ heads and expect concessions from them, it was bound to be a fruitless one. “Canada will not change its mind,” Freeland said, about its position that the U.S. tariffs — recently extended to Canada, Mexico and the European Union on the basis of “national security” — are “illegal” and “absolutely unjustified.” The EU and Canada have both announced retaliatory tariffs.
Aside from a lingering conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G7 “family photo” — after which he responded to a reporter’s question about tariffs by saying Merkel was a “fantastic person” — Trump’s only formal bilateral meetings were with French President Emmanuel Macron, perhaps the most vocal about his opposition to Trump’s policy, and with Trudeau.
The Canadian government has tried to use international summits such as this one to emphasize its support for free trade and its disdain for protectionist measures such as those proposed in the states. But such messages have fallen on deaf ears. Amid Trump’s threats to dismantle free trade with his closest neighbours, the American administration has aggressively pursued an updated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, with Trump repeating on Friday that he foresees bilateral deals instead.
Trump also withdrew from the 12-country TransPacific Partnership only to watch the remaining 11 members, including the G7’s Canada and Japan, pursue their own free trade zone outside the U.S. Canada has promised to table legislation this month to ratify the new agreement and on Friday, Trudeau and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed bring it into force “expeditiously,” according to Canadian officials.
Meanwhile, even as the EU lauds its completed trade deal with Canada, Trump has let a potential U.S.-EU deal, started under the previous administration, fall off his government’s list of priorities.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement or CETA came into provisional application last September. A senior Canadian official said some industries have been able to reap more benefits than others — such as aerospace, automobiles and certain agricultural industries — but the government is looking at adding new trade commissioners in Europe to facilitate exports.
“There’s a lot of questions hanging over it but think about this: at least we have CETA,” said Jason Langrish, executive director of the Canada Europe Roundtable for Business. “If NAFTA really blows up bad, it’s not going to offset that damage, but it can kind of dampen the pain a little bit.”
Any way you slice it there remains a major philosophical schism between Trump and the six others — one that could poison the well on other agenda-setting issues that the G7 discusses, said Perrin Beatty, the president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
“Here the person who should be the leader of the free world is turning and attacking his closest allies and undermining global institutions that are critical to all of our success,” said Beatty.
“When you have an administration in the United States that has 16th-century mercantilist views of trade and that sees trade as a zero sum game — the United States can only win if somebody else loses — then the ability to progress here is minimal,” he said, adding that expectations out of this G7 summit are “much, much lower” this year as a result.
THEY’RE NOT TALKING IN TWEETS.