Canada turns to Mexico to help fend off pressure to sign TPP

DANANG, Vietnam — From the outside, it looked like yet another bilateral meeting between Justin Trudeau and his continental ally, Enrique Pena Nieto, on the sidelines of yet another leaders’ summit.

But this time, the Canadian prime minister had a somewhat atypical agenda for his face-to-face chat with the Mexican president.

Trudeau and Pena Nieto, who have built a good relationship in NAFTA’s negotiating trenches, gripped hands and exchanged warm greetings inside the meeting room.

It was the Canadian leader’s first bilateral meeting on the margins of this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Vietnam. The Canadian team had planned it that way.

A key topic of discussion, as they sank into the yellow cushions on their chairs, focused on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks.

Heading into APEC, a senior Canadian government official said Ottawa had been anticipating pressure from TPP partners Japan and Australia, two countries that wanted to move forward quickly with sealing the 11-country deal.

The Trudeau government, on the other hand, wanted to throw some sand in the gears. Ottawa had been pushing the other parties to make changes to how the treaty would affect areas like culture, intellectual property and the auto sector.

“We were not going to be rushed into a deal,” Trudeau told reporters at his closing APEC news conference on Saturday, echoing warnings he had issued repeatedly over the course of the week.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, provided a peek behind the scenes of what followed during the TPP talks in Danang.

The Canadian team had no plans to agree to the deal at Friday’s TPP leaders’ meeting unless the modifications were made. And they knew they had some allies. They had also been informed about unease about the deal among a few of the other countries.

The official said Japan and Australia tried to railroad Canada into committing to an agreement in principle Friday by arguing the other TPP members would be disappointed if they didn’t deliver, the official said. That’s where Mexico fit in. Trudeau explained his situation to Pena Nieto, who reassured him that if Canada didn’t sign on to the TPP, Mexico wouldn’t either, the official said. Mexico had been sending similar signals of restraint about signing on to a new TPP. The talks were “very productive,’ but more discussion was needed, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo was reported to have said on Thursday.

The official added that Pena Nieto likely offered his support for two reasons: Mexico wasn’t 100 per cent comfortable with the deal on the table and the fact Canada has stood by it through the tough NAFTA renegotiation with U.S. President Donald Trump.