TRADE TOPS AGENDA IN D.C.
Moe to meet U.S. commerce boss Wilbur Ross
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is hoping to convince U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and other American political heavyweights that tariffs and cancelled trade deals don’t help Canada or America.
“I will be putting forward that that can be a win-win and doesn’t have to be a lose-lose,” Moe said in an interview Friday ahead of his meeting with Ross during a trip to Washington, D.C. next week. The trip was arranged prior to Thursday’s decision by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to extend tariffs on aluminum and steel to Canada and Mexico.
After Trump’s move on Thursday, the Canadian government announced a series of retaliatory sanctions on U.S. steel and aluminum and other imports, including sleeping bags, maple syrup, yogurt, tissues, napkins, toilet paper, pens, chocolate, beer kegs, bourbon and orange juice.
“I don’t think any trade war is productive in any way. I don’t think any trade tariffs, quite frankly, unnecessary trade tariffs, are productive in any way,” Moe told reporters Thursday. “These are not productive times when we have tariffs going both ways.”
On Friday, Moe’s office unveiled a meeting schedule in Washington for Wednesday and Thursday that includes Republican Senator Steve Daines and Democrat Senator Jon Tester from Montana, Democrat North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, Kansas Republican Senator Pat Roberts (who chairs the Senate agriculture committee) and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, plus several other members of congress.
The meetings were arranged through former U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, whose Washington law firm Nelson, Mullin, Riley & Scarborough lobbies for the Saskatchewan government on trade and energy issues, said executive council.
Moe’s communication staff also confirmed Wilkins had arranged an added meeting Thursday with Ross, the former corporate banker who was appointed by Trump in February 2017 to the key cabinet position.
Asked what he would say to Ross and the other U.S. politicians, Moe said he will make the argument that steel is one of several industries that frequently crosses the Canada-U.S. border and that trade tariffs or ending deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) put both countries’ economies in peril.
The Saskatchewan premier intends to tell Ross that scrap metal from U.S. cars is shipped to the Evraz mill in Regina and that steel is then shipped to Portland, Ore., where it’s made into steel plates. Those plates make their way back to Canada where they are rolled into pipe shipped back to the U.S. “That steel crosses the board three or four times before its used in Texas oilfields,” Moe said.
Such economic integration has only been possible in the last 25 years of the NAFTA agreement, Moe said, adding the trade deal can be updated but shouldn’t be scrapped.
“It’s my hope the logic on the conversation will prevail,” he continued.
Moe also said it’s equally critical to talk to regional U.S. politicians because the implementation of NAFTA occurs at the provincial and state level closest to the industries.