After spending months talking about Canada’s relations with the US, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will gather an economic summit on Friday with a new focus: promoting his country’s trade with the rest of the world.
The purpose of the Canada Economic Summit-BA will be “make it easier to build and trade our borders, and diversify export markets,” Trudeau said on Wednesday.
The measure comes day after Tredeau negotiated a 30-day return from Donald Trump’s plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on Canadian imports in the US, in addition to the energy, which would be taxed to 10 percent.
After decades of free trade between US and Canada, the US president’s tariff threat to a C 1.3TN $ (91bn $) relationship has prompted an account among policymakers on how to curb the country’s dependence on its southern neighbor – and how to recalibrate his economy
“Canada’s strategy for the last 30 years has relied on trade agreements. . . That Trump has interrupted and can no longer be supported as a business issue for Canada, ”said John Manley, a former finance minister.
Trudeau has called executives, policy experts and work unions in Toronto along with his Kanada relationship council.
His attempt to gather the business community reflects an anxiety that Canadian companies can no longer enjoy uninterrupted access to the world’s largest economy.
Trump’s threatened trade war comes in a time of acute political turmoil for Canada. Trudeau last month suspended parliament to buy time for his Liberal governing party to elect a new leader before facing a general election this year.
The prime minister is leaving office with a dissatisfied appreciation of popularity, but his treatment of Trump has also gained praise from his opponents. Trump’s threat to Canada – and his frequent wanders – have aroused an outbreak of patriotism.
More than 90 percent of Canadians now favor greater economic independence from the US, from 59 percent before the threat of Trump’s fee, according to a survey by the Angus Reid Institute.
“Trump must be the awakening call. We have a really great economic challenge in our hands. . . We have been so complacent to rely on the United States, ”said Martha Hall Findlay, Director of the Public Policy School at the University of Calgary.
Over 50 years Canada has fallen from being the sixth most productive economy at OECD at 18 in 2022. In G7, it is now its sixth. Work productivity in 2024 was 1.2 percent below pre-landmark, as it fell to 14 of the last 16 quarters.
International trade has increased twice as soon as domestic trade since 2010, according to ScotiaBank Economyics. Canada sends 77 percent of its goods exported to the US, and no other marker is greater than 5 percent, said Scotia.
Among the most vocal complaints from the industry and some experts is that Canada’s leaders, including Trudeau, have not built energy infrastructure to allow Canada to sell oil and its gas overseas.
Trudeau’s government funded the Trans Mountain enlargement pipeline on the west coast of Canada – allowing more exports to Asia – opened in May last year after more than a decade of development and at a cost of $ 34bn, four times over the budget.
But Trump’s riots have revived the debate over previously canceled projects such as Energy East, which would have sent oil from Alberta to as far as the eastern Atlantic coast of Canada, and Northern Gateway, another project to export oil to Heavy on the Pacific coast.
“If we cut the red bar we could have a pipeline built in two years,” said Adam Waterous, chief executive of Strathcona Resources, the fifth largest oil manufacturer in Canada.
He added that the US bought “liquid gold at silver liquid prices” because “Canada has no other options”, but to send most of its oil to refine south of the border.
Andrew Leach, an Energy and Environmental Economist at the University of Alberta, said large investments were needed to build pipes, but projects also needed support from Canada provinces, first nations and environmentalist groups, as well as government federal.
The country’s oil industry would “fortunately move oil and gas to the west coast instead of the US Midwest, it makes sense to do so,” he said. “But Trudeau’s latest blame for the lack of pipeline options seems to forget that the conservatives were in power for a decade before him.”
Since Trump’s fees threats in recent days, politicians have been faster to swing after the increase in Canada’s domestic trade.
Canada’s provinces protect their local industries such as agriculture and alcohol. Different adjustment means that workers cannot always move their credentials to other regions. Truck drivers also face headaches, including different rules for vehicle weights in different jurisdictions at different times of the year.
Trudeau’s internal trade minister, Anita Anand, has led efforts to break these obstacles – an action she said “will potentially increase up to $ 200 billion in the Canadian economy”.
But the decades of effort have passed to facilitate this internal friction of trade, and the obstacles remain.
Many officials and experts are skeptical of how much can be achieved to increase Canada’s economic independence from the US, given the inevitable reality of geography and the relative size of countries.
Those who make efforts for greater economic self-esteem argue Canada has little choice-and show that America’s economic turn is not unique to Trump. Even Barack Obama started the alarm bells in Canada with his speech on “American Buy” policies.
Leach said there were lessons for Canada from the UK experience after Brexit.
“Canada is near the world’s largest free market economy,” he said. “And while SH.BA is doing this, if you decide to be completely separated from them, it can end badly.”
