00:00Of course, we want to talk about the Independence Day commemorations here in just a few minutes,
00:04but let's talk about the U.S.-Canada relationship.
00:06First, you were the lead negotiator in 2018 on USMCA, KUSMA, in Canadian parlance.
00:12And given all of that experience, I just wanted to ask you first if you were surprised by what happened
00:17here.
00:17Drawing again from the Prime Minister's remarks yesterday,
00:20he said proposed last-minute changes were, in his words, unfair and uneconomic,
00:24and they called into question the reliability of any deal.
00:29So, I'm very proud of the position that Canada and Prime Minister Carney have taken.
00:35I'm not surprised. I am relieved.
00:39I think that we were on the brink of a deal that would have been a bad deal for Canada
00:46and also, frankly, a bad deal for the United States, and I'm glad that that didn't happen.
00:53My experience in the ultimately successful negotiation of the USMCA
00:59is that the way to get a good deal with the Trump administration is you need to do three things.
01:08First, do look for areas where you can cooperate, and there are a lot.
01:13Ultimately, this is a win-win relationship.
01:15Second, I think it's so important for Canada to make the case beyond the White House.
01:23In 2018, we called it the donut strategy, and I think Americans are basically good, decent, smart people,
01:32and I think Americans broadly recognize their relationship with Canada is excellent,
01:38and they don't want to break it.
01:39And I think Team Canada now really needs to go out and explain that to Americans.
01:44And then the third thing, which can be hard and which we saw just now,
01:50is with this administration, you cannot capitulate.
01:55My motto was we do not escalate and we do not back down,
01:59and I think that is the only language that the Trump administration understands, unfortunately.
02:04Chris, I want to ask you about the potential consequences here of this escalating or spiraling trade war.
02:10So you have the tariffs put in place, the retaliatory tariffs we expect,
02:13the prime minister put in place on September the 8th.
02:16This could escalate and escalate, and I noted in a piece that Bloomberg had yesterday,
02:20there was a professor at the University of Calgary noting that if the tariffs were in place,
02:24Canada could lose almost 90,000 jobs.
02:27The prime minister in his comments yesterday in the statement following the dissolution of this meeting
02:30said he wasn't being cavalier about this decision.
02:33But I wonder if you could talk about the very real consequences for Canadians of this escalating or spiraling, in
02:39fact.
02:42So Canadians, I think, understand the situation very, very well.
02:47I think Canadians recognize that we are a smaller economy,
02:51but Canadians also recognize that there are fundamental principles at stake,
02:59that Canada's sovereignty is at stake.
03:01And I think the prime minister has the entire country behind him on this one.
03:07The other thing is, you know, the lesson of our very recent history,
03:11the lesson of 2018 and 2019,
03:15when the first time the U.S. imposed tariffs,
03:19illegal and unjustified tariffs that went outside our NAFTA deal,
03:24is retaliation works.
03:25So in 2018, the U.S. imposed tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.
03:30At the time, I was Canada's foreign minister responsible for the trading relationship.
03:36And we responded with dollar for dollar retaliation.
03:41The president threatened to destroy Canada as a result, but we went through with it.
03:46And in less than a year, the U.S. lifted its tariffs on our steel and aluminum.
03:52And the reason for that was the tariffs, the U.S. tariffs didn't make sense.
03:56And Canadian retaliation actually hurt.
03:59I think that that's what we're going to see happen this time, too.
04:02I'm wondering, I was listening to BBC this morning,
04:05and they were floating this idea that the theory behind this,
04:09someone was saying they think the theory behind this is,
04:12folds back to that 51st state issue,
04:14that the president is actively trying to tank the Canadian economy
04:17so that Canada is more willing to do exactly what you just said Canada shouldn't do,
04:21capitulate, come to the table, and then get into the American fold.
04:24That seems a little far-fetched to me,
04:26but I do think it's interesting that that is a narrative
04:28that is being spoken about in not ridiculous circles.
04:31I wanted to get your take on that.
04:33And just what is the strategy here,
04:35if there is one, to antagonizing our neighbor
04:38and one of our largest trading partners?
04:41Look, it is definitely not my job to speak for the Trump administration.
04:47But the president has been very clear and consistent
04:53since before he was sworn in the second time.
04:57He has repeatedly said he wants Canada to be the 51st state.
05:01He has repeatedly referred to the Canadian prime minister as a governor.
05:06He's the president of the United States.
05:09I think Canada and the world does have to take those assertions really seriously.
05:15And that's why I'm so proud of Canada for standing strong.
05:20Now, what I would say to Americans who are listening to us is I think you need to think
05:29very seriously as a country about whether you want to have allies.
05:35It feels to me like what we're hearing from the White House is the president wants only to have vassals.
05:43He doesn't want to have partners.
05:47I know as a Canadian, Canada will never accept being a vassal.
05:54Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a former prime minister from a different party, a conservative,
06:00said shortly after President Trump was elected that Canada should be prepared to accept any amount of economic harm
06:08to retain our sovereignty.
06:09I think that's a widely held view in Canada.
06:12But what I would say to Americans is why wouldn't you want to have partners in the world?
06:18Why is your government treating your adversaries, and I would name a country like China
06:26or a country like Russia more respectfully than you are treating countries like Canada,
06:34like EU-NATO partners, like Denmark, countries that have been your allies for a very long time?
06:41I don't think that that is in the long-term interests of America and Americans.
06:45On the subject of allyship, as I mentioned, you're in Kyiv.
06:49Independence Day commemorations are tomorrow.
06:50It's the four-and-a-half-year anniversary of the conflict, this full-scale invasion as well.
06:55I want to get you a read on what's been targeted lately and what that says about the state of
06:59this conflict.
07:00So we've seen Ukraine going after energy facilities in Russia, for instance,
07:04going after e-commerce facilities as well.
07:06Conversely, we've seen Russia attacking shopping malls in Ukraine in recent days here.
07:12Where do you see the conflict in its current terms as you look at kind of the broader sweep of
07:16it,
07:16and what do you make of this escalation when it comes to kind of targeting important economic,
07:22important parts of the economies of both of these countries?
07:26Great question.
07:27And I do want to start by saying I think we have to be really, really careful always not to
07:33create
07:34some kind of a false equivalence between Ukraine and Russia.
07:41Ukraine was illegally invaded twice by Russia.
07:48Ukraine, if Russia withdrew from Ukrainian territory, Ukraine would stop the war immediately.
07:54And Russia invaded Ukraine having recognized Ukraine's borders and having actually guaranteed those
08:03borders in the 90s when Ukraine gave up its nuclear missiles.
08:10So we have to be really, really clear who is the aggressor, who is committing war crimes.
08:16Having said that, you know, the Ukrainians have, I think, surprised a lot of people,
08:21maybe everyone other than the Ukrainians themselves, by the effectiveness of their military campaign this year.
08:29And they've done three things that are really working.
08:32One, as you say, David, is the deep strikes inside Russia.
08:37And those strikes have been particularly targeting Russia's oil refining capacity.
08:44That's important because what it means is ordinary Russians are feeling the pain of war.
08:49And it also limits Russia's war machine.
08:53Second thing that Ukrainians have done really effectively is they're turning out to be really,
08:58really good at the drone war.
09:00And, you know, you are seeing that they're holding the line on the front.
09:05The third thing that Ukrainians are doing is they've turned the Russian control of Crimea from a Russian advantage
09:13and Crimea from a foothold into Ukraine into a real weakness.
09:17So the Ukrainians are doing well, but they're really suffering for it.
09:22And there's a lot of concern here that it's going to be a hard winter.
09:25Christia Freeland, thank you very much.
09:26Christia Freeland, thank you.
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