Trump to examine 16 trade partners; Freeland says U.S. has surplus with Canada

OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is taking aim at a core assumption of Donald Trump’s upcoming review of American trading partners — she said Friday the U.S. has a trade surplus with Canada, not the other way around.

Freeland’s assessment comes as Trump prepared to hold his country’s major trading partners to account. The president wants to determine which countries are using abusive trade practices to run export surpluses — and Canada is among those to be examined.

Trump signed an executive order Friday demanding a study within 90 days of all the ways other countries allegedly pull fast ones on the United States through anti-competitive trade practices.

It will be a systematic examination of things like non-tariff barriers, lax legal enforcement, currency manipulation and other means that keep out American goods while other countries boost their own exports.

“Under my administration the theft of American prosperity will end,” Trump said in the Oval Office, adding that the well-being of America and the American worker is “my North Star.”

There are about 16 countries on the list, which includes places with the biggest trade surpluses with the U.S. The biggest is no contest: China, with a US$347 trade billion surplus with the U.S. last year. That’s followed by Japan, Germany and Mexico and a list of U.S. allies like France, Italy, India and Thailand.

Of all the countries, Canada is listed as having the smallest surplus. It was the last of the countries that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross mentioned. U.S. government statistics show Canada even ran a trade deficit of US$11.9 billion with the U.S. in goods and services in 2015, before running a surplus in 2016.

Freeland offered a different view.

“Canada is the single largest client of the United States and when you look at our overall trading relationship, counting goods and services, the U.S. runs a slight trade surplus with Canada,” said Freeland.

“So I am really confident that the U.S. administration understands and will continue to understand that this is a relationship which is win-win and we’re going hard on both sides of the border to keep it that way.”