Ottawa siding with U.S. in trade pact fight over Mexican energy policies
Canada is backing U.S. efforts to push again towards what they see as protectionist vitality insurance policies in Mexico that violate North American commerce guidelines.
U.S. Commerce Consultant Katherine Tai says Mexico is unfairly prioritizing its personal state-owned vitality operations and shutting out American companies, together with photo voltaic and wind producers.
A spokesperson for Commerce Minister Mary Ng mentioned Canada helps a U.S. request for dispute decision talks with Mexico, and likewise plans its personal consultations.
Alice Hansen mentioned Canada agrees that Mexico’s insurance policies are inconsistent with its obligations below the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Settlement, referred to in Canada as CUSMA.
U.S. vitality producers have been complaining for months that Mexico gives preferential pricing and emissions requirements for 2 of its largest corporations: oil and gasoline producer Pemex and the Federal Electrical energy Fee.
The USTR is accusing Mexico of utilizing “delays, denials and revocations” to thwart U.S. entry to Mexico’s vitality sector, together with on renewable vitality.
“Canada has persistently raised its issues concerning Mexico’s change in vitality coverage. We agree with the USA that these insurance policies are inconsistent with Mexico’s CUSMA obligations,” Hansen mentioned in a media assertion.
“We will likely be becoming a member of the USA in taking motion by launching our personal consultations below CUSMA to handle these issues, whereas supporting the U.S. of their problem.”
Ottawa and Washington have clashed over commerce points
The present of Canada-U.S. solidarity marks a pivot of kinds for a commerce relationship that has largely been marked by disputes because the trilateral commerce settlement turned regulation two years in the past.
The 2 nations have been usually at odds over how Canada makes use of the settlement’s guidelines to supply U.S. dairy producers entry to the supply-managed market north of the border. And the Biden administration solely agreed earlier this month to raise Trump-era tariffs on Canadian-made photo voltaic merchandise imposed again in 2018.
Softwood lumber, too, stays a long-standing bone of rivalry between Canada and the U.S., the place two senior members of Congress are urging Tai to make a deal to ease the inflationary strain on the U.S. housing market.
Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune additionally need the Biden administration to supply additional tariff aid on imports from Canada.
Doing so would “make house building and homeownership extra reasonably priced for communities throughout our nation,” Menendez and Thune wrote Monday in a letter to Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Because the final softwood lumber settlement between the 2 nations expired in 2015, softwood lumber costs have greater than doubled, they wrote.
“Addressing lumber commerce inefficiencies would assist cut back pointless monetary pressures on the U.S. housing market,” the letter reads. “We urge the U.S. commerce consultant to prioritize a brand new softwood lumber settlement between America and Canada.”
In November, the Division of Commerce doubled the softwood lumber tariff price to 17.9 per cent, however determined earlier this 12 months to decrease it to 11.64 per cent.
Tai mentioned the U.S. is prepared to speak however Canada should tackle the federal payment regime that American producers say creates an uneven enjoying area — the core difficulty in a commerce dispute that has persevered for many years.
Ottawa units stumpage charges for lumber harvested from federal and provincial land that producers within the U.S. — pressured to pay market charges — have lengthy insisted quantity to an unfair subsidy.
