Potential challenge to USMCA
Trump campaigned on promises to get tough with China and rework the trading relationship between the world’s two largest economies.
So far, Trump has imposed $250 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese goods entering the U.S. and China has responded with tariffs of its own as the dispute has escalated over the course of the year.
Trump has also criticized the WTO and the U.S. has openly blocked the appointments of new judges to the organization’s dispute settlement mechanism, known as the appellate body, a tactic that threatens to paralyze the organization and prevent it from making decisions.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have been championing changes to the WTO and organized a meeting last month in Ottawa to start crafting a road map for reforms.
“There was broad agreement on how we need to support our citizens and work forward towards better co-operation,” Trudeau said. “But I don’t think it will come as a huge surprise that there are differing visions on particular elements in regards to trade and those prevented there from being full consensus on the communiqué document.”
When asked specifically which countries were involved, Trudeau said the U.S. and China were among a larger group.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence traded barbs Saturday in a battle for global influence. Both left the summit by early Sunday afternoon amid what reports described as tense backroom negotiations on the wording of the final communiqué.
Trudeau met Sunday with the leaders of two key trading partners — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison — where there was talk about the future of a trade deal among 11 Pacific Rim countries, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Observers say there is chatter about admitting the United States and China into the CPTPP to create a further-reaching regional trade pact. Speaking through a translator, Abe said he was ready to work with Trudeau “to expand this trade area, which will have the free and fair rules” and forge a closer relationship “to address various global challenges.”
Morrison noted that the countries who ratified the agreement were “leaving the door open for others to come join, which we would welcome.”
Trudeau also had to deal with a potential challenge to the recently concluded United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA for short.
More than 40 Republican lawmakers wrote Trump on Friday demanding the removal of language in the agreement pledging all three countries to support policies that protect workers against discrimination on the basis of sex, including with regard to pregnancy, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, gender identity.