Canadian wine is on NAFTA negotiating table
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has an issue with getting agricultural products to Canada, and it might not be the ones you think.
“It’s an extraordinary problem for those people who are affected,’’ Lighthizer said June 22 when he appeared before the House of Representatives ways and means committee to talk about trade priorities. “And there is no justification for it.’’
Much of the spotlight on Canada-U.S. trade leading up to the new North American Free Trade talks has been on dairy products.
This time, though, Lighthizer was not talking about cheese, but what you pair it with: wine.
Two days before President Donald Trump entered the White House, the U.S. launched an aggressive trade challenge by asking the World Trade Organization to examine how the B.C. government was allowing only wine produced within the province to be sold in grocery stores.
Lighthizer told the committee in June that WTO consultations — the first stage of the process — had not resolved things, so the administration was thinking about whether to press ahead with a dispute settlement panel in Geneva.
Then he mentioned another, perhaps friendlier, way to go: the new NAFTA.
“In this case it would make more sense to negotiate and do it in a less hostile way,’’ he said.
A month later, Lighthizer published the list of goals the Trump administration has for a renegotiated trade deal with Canada and Mexico, in advance of the first round of talks on Aug. 16. Canadian wine got a mention in the accompanying news release.
The move to allow only B.C. wines to be sold in B.C. grocery stores, which the U.S. argues is discriminatory, is not the only issue the Trump administration has with the way Canada imports and sells wine.
The U.S. government’s annual report on trade barriers highlights a complaint that would be shared by many Canadian consumers who have long chafed at limited access: in many parts of the country, province-run liquor control boards restrict the sale of wine, beer and spirits.