Alberta\u2019s Premier Danielle Smith<\/a> said earlier Monday she favors appeasing Trump by trying to narrow the trade gap, saying the solution is that Canada finds ways to buy more American goods. Smith visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump\u2019s home in Florida, over the weekend and spoke to Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHillman has said the U.S. had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada last year but noted a third of what Canada sells into the U.S. is energy exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hillman said trade with Canada supports over 8 million jobs in the United States and Canada is the number one customer to 36 U.S. states. She said Canada provides a lot of primary materials that go into U.S. manufacturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAdding 25% tariffs to those products will raise the price for Americans almost immediately,\u201d Hillman said. \u201cAnd at a time when the cost of living is challenging, when food prices are high, it seems like the wrong direction to go in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hillman also reiterated that Canada will retaliate if tariffs are placed on Canadian goods and that will mean a cost for Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCanada will respond,\u201d she said. \u201cTherefore your number one customer will make American products more expensive and Canadians will probably look for alternatives to those products.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hillman said Canada is not interested in a trade war but said it will be hard for the Canadian government to not respond if the U.S. government makes choices that hurt Canadians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said it doesn\u2019t make sense for Trump to reverse what he accomplished in his first term when he renegotiated the free trade deal with Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are 99% tariff free with the United States, 99% tariff free. And that tariff level is as a result of the USMCA,\u201d Hillman said, referring to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. \u201cThat was negotiated by President Trump. He achieved that success so why would we backtrack from this success that he achieved in his last administration. It just doesn\u2019t make a lot sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hillman gave Trump credit for accelerating Canada\u2019s plans to increase security at the border. Trump initially threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods if the government does not stem what Trump calls a flow of migrants and drugs in the U.S. \u2014 even though far fewer of each crosses into the U.S. from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump has also threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Canada now has a billion plus border security plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have moved really quickly, I\u2019ll be honest, because President Trump focused the mind to put together a full package of improvements,\u201d Hillman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hillman said also said the U.S. and Canada are in a \u201cgenerational struggle\u201d with China, a powerful adversary. Trump has been clear about the economic and security threat that Beijing poses, she said. The ambassador said Canada has the energy America needs to drive the artificial intelligence revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat is really not possible, based on our experts and American experts, without greater cooperation with Canada through oil and gas, through nuclear, through hydro electricity,\u201d Hillman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf we are working at odds then frankly China wins. China is trying to drive us apart. That is clear. They look for every opportunity to do so. That\u2019s not good for us, our citizens and Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PALM DESERT, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Canada\u2019s ambassador to Washi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3612,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610\/revisions\/3612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}