00:00Ali Renison is a former UK Trade Department official. Great to have you back on Global Business Europe.
00:06Now look, Trump told Canada to fall in line or face something far worse. That threat appears to have backfired,
00:12hasn't it?
00:14Well, it's certainly provoking a sort of more than considered reaction, shall we say, from not just from the Prime
00:21Minister of Canada in terms of suspending talks with the negotiations with the US,
00:25but also you're seeing the likes of the Ontario provincial leader, Mr. Ford, talking about threatening to cut off, you
00:35know,
00:35or encouraging the cut off of things like electricity, basically non-tariff measures to go to respond to the US.
00:40So the escalation is certainly back on the cards.
00:44Now, Carney says Washington wants to destroy our major industry. That's about as blunt as diplomatic language gets.
00:50Has this now moved beyond a trade dispute into something more personal, do you think?
00:56Well, depending on who you listen to, and right now it's certainly a battle of the narratives about why the
01:00talks fell apart,
01:01exactly what provisions in the agreement. We don't have the text exactly, but we're taking different depictions between the Canadian
01:07and the US side,
01:08between President Trump and Mark Carney, even some of the chief negotiators involved about what it fell apart over.
01:15And I think that there are some provisions in there that some might argue, certainly the US wanted to put
01:20into the agreement,
01:20that go beyond sort of trade measures to do with sort of what the Canadians consider to be matters of
01:26sovereignty relating to economic security
01:27or the way in which they kind of organize their audiovisual sort of media sectors, particularly the cultural areas around
01:33sort of French language programming.
01:35So it's starting to sort of take shape that it's perhaps what the US wanted to put into the deal
01:41goes beyond what the Canadians might consider to be trade matters.
01:44Yeah. I mean, some analysts told us that this pain and this focus on what really counts as a trade
01:49matter
01:50is really only short and medium term for Canada's businesses, that a future US administration eventually will reset things.
01:58Does Carney actually believe that, or is he playing for today's headlines?
02:03I think it's a bit of both. I think that there is, on the one hand, an anticipation, perhaps in
02:08the future, things might sort of settle down.
02:10But certainly when you look at the provisions, the details of the measures that the Canadian government is putting together
02:15to support businesses
02:17in terms of diversification funds, you know, cash, things to help with cash flow losses from sort of tariffs, that
02:24they are digging in.
02:25On the other hand, I think that Mark Carney is certainly enjoying his man of the moment in terms of
02:29the headlines
02:29as being the only leader to really sort of stand up to President Trump's efforts on trade, shall we say.
02:35Ali Otto is putting seven and a half billion Canadian dollars behind its Canadian workers and businesses to help them
02:41weather these tariffs.
02:43Is it confidence or is it a sign of just how much pain they're actually bracing for?
02:48Yeah, I mean, I think it's a bit of both when you look at the sort of some of the
02:51measures.
02:51And that's more interesting than I think the detail that we have yet to get in full about what the
02:55retaliatory tariffs are going to target.
02:57But certainly there's a lot of detail already behind what the Canadians are putting in place to try and support
03:02their businesses.
03:03They are very well aware that some of the measures that the U.S. trade team is targeting, they're going
03:10after provinces where they have restricted, for example, U.S. whiskey sales.
03:14So they are trying to sort of gear up and acknowledge the fact that with the way in which the
03:18U.S. is going after the Canadian economy, very targeted.
03:21And they want to make sure that they are there, because ultimately, you know, in terms of the retaliatory tariffs
03:26that the Canada is going to put on U.S. imports, those are going to hurt.
03:30Those are going to hurt domestic economies.
03:31So I think the detail that they're putting behind some of the support packages is a reflection and acknowledgement of
03:36that.
03:38Ali Renison, thank you very much.
03:39Ali Renison, thank you very much.
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