00:00Now, following the announcement of Carney's trip, Conservative leader Pierre Polyev posting on social media, saying in part, quote,
00:06hoping Prime Minister Carney will keep his promise and negotiate a win with President Trump to end the U.S. tariffs in their Tuesday meeting.
00:13Polyev went on to say, quote, no word on where the prime minister's elbows have gone after he backed down again and again with nothing to show for it.
00:22Well, joining us now is Stuart True, international trade policy researcher.
00:26Stuart, good morning. Thanks for being here.
00:28Hey, Matt. How are you doing?
00:29I'm good. Let's get into this, shall we, too.
00:32Interesting timing that Mark Carney is finally going to head back to Washington.
00:36There is word that at least some sort of a deal, Dominic LeBlanc saying he's optimistic.
00:41What do you make of this latest trip and the possibility, it looks like, of at least some of these tariffs and relief from some of them?
00:48Yeah, well, it's good to see the prime minister going back after so many months.
00:51I mean, we've missed a few deadlines, right, in terms of snapping some kind of deal with Trump on certainly on the sectoral tariffs.
00:57That's what's really hitting the Canadian economy now.
01:00So, you know, when I hear that possibly we have a steel or aluminum arrangement in the cards, I think that's good news, depending on what it looks like.
01:08You know, even some kind of quota system, I think, would be all right at this point, as long as we're lowering those tariffs well below what Europe or Japan or the U.K.
01:18got in their deals with Trump.
01:20If you recall, I think they're still paying something like 15 percent at the low end.
01:24So even a deal like that, you know, that keeps tariffs in place, but a low tariff might actually still be bad for the Canadian economy,
01:33still creates that pressure for a lot of those steel companies, manufacturing, secondary manufacturing companies to simply pick up and go to the states where there's zero tariffs.
01:42So it's all going to depend on what the prime minister announces, if anything, as you were saying.
01:48It's been so difficult for these industries with these tariffs over the last number of months and for this year, 2025 in particular.
01:57I know that many Canadians would like to see an overall deal or something bigger, but we know that Kuzma is going to be renegotiated next year.
02:03So does it feel like there could be wins in different parts here in smaller increments, you know, possibly over the next few months leading up to that renegotiation next year?
02:13Well, I'm a little pessimistic on this.
02:16I think Trump is going to take us for all we've got in the Kuzma negotiations.
02:21I think he's displayed a tendency to use whatever leverage he has and can use, right, to get maximum concessions out of his trading partners.
02:31And I think we're going to see that in the Kuzma negotiations.
02:34So I do think it would be positive in a sense to get some relief in even a few sectors going into those Kuzma and hopefully more, right?
02:43So that's the situation we're at.
02:45I mean, the reality is, you know, we saw the government is going to Washington and trying to make the case that, you know, their businesses are as hurt as ours are by these tariffs.
02:54I don't think the Trump administration cares about that.
02:56I think we need to be looking here in Canada about not just, of course, working towards a deal.
03:02These are essential, right?
03:03We're a highly integrated economy.
03:05It's good for our workers here if we sort something out.
03:07But also the secondary plans, right?
03:09We need to see much more faster plans, I suppose, around industrial strategies for lumber, for other metals sectors.
03:19And now for cabinets, for kitchen cabinets, for furniture, for copper, for other sectors.
03:26We need to be thinking about the plan B, essentially, and putting that into place at the same time as we negotiate these things with Trump.
03:34Because we might not get the outcome through those Kuzma review negotiations that we are hoping for.
03:40There are lots of industries there.
03:42But for you, what would that plan B look like, briefly, before I let you go?
03:47Yeah, well, it's bringing together industry workers and government to develop some kind of way to develop new sectors.
03:54If it's in lumber, we've heard the government talking about value-added, right?
03:58Novel wood products that you can use in construction.
04:01And then some kind of strategy for getting those deployed throughout Canada as a kind of stopgap, right?
04:08As we're facing these issues with the United States.
04:10That means, by Canadian conditions, on some of the projects we're planning to build, right?
04:16A lot of infrastructure, public services, and housing.
04:19And those plans have to come together.
04:21They can't just be kind of stated.
04:23We need to be putting some meat on those bones.
04:25Otherwise, we're not going to be ready for a potentially rocky Kuzma review.
04:30Where Trump, for all, you know, he might just decide to pull out, as he did last time, right?
04:35I wouldn't put that past him.
04:36So that's the kind of plan.
04:38It's a government, industry, labor, coordinated industrial strategy, as they're doing all around the world, right?
04:45There's nothing strange about this.
04:46And I think we have to start doing it sooner than later.
04:50Stuart True, international trade policy researcher.
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