Prime Minister Mark Carney goes to Mexico with two separate but related goals on Thursday.
The first one is to find ways to work with Mexico to keep North America-wide free trade, or at least as much of it as it can be saved in a century before the most protected US government.
The second is to build a bilateral trade relationship with Mexico, which operates independently of the moods of the White House, and can survive the fate that is in the store for the Canada-USA-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) when its new negotiation finally takes place.
The trip is expected to be an agreement on a new comprehensive partnership about Canada-Mexico and a security dialog on topics such as transnational crime and drug injuries.
“We focus on improving our partnerships in retail, trade, security and energy,” said Carney in a written declaration before his departure to Mexico city. “Together we will build stronger supply chains, create new opportunities for employees and offer both Canadians and Mexicans more prosperity and security.”
But there were also some turbulence in the relationship, as it was during the first term of the US President Donald Trump, and the journey is an attempt to build trust between the two partners that will not throw the other under the bus.
Repair fences with Mexico
The Mexicans may be those with a better reason to feel suspicious of the Canadian hug.
“There were concerns about in Mexico Testify This was done by the Prime Minister Doug Ford and Danielle Smith“, Said Laura Macdonald from the Institute for Political Economics at Carleton University, and that members of the Trudeau government had also indicated” we would be better off without Mexico shortly after the re-election of Trump “.
But the Canadian leaders, both the federal government and the province, seem to have dropped the idea that Canada can escape Trump’s sights by pushing Mexico out of them.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says Canada cannot “sacrifice” his relationship with the United States if Mexico is a “trade irritation”. she says
In August Smith Visited Mexico And seemed to make a fence fence. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Foreign Minister Anita Anita visited Mexico in the same month and met Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and built bilateral conversations at the G7 summit.
“I think now, after eight months of Trump, it is clear that Canada is not better off without Mexico,” said Macdonald.
“We really have to work with our partners and allies, the Mexicans,” she said in view of the unpredictability of Trump’s tariffs and other steps. “It would just weaken us if they walk separately from the Mexicans.”
Bilateral trade grow
The trade relationship with Mexico has grown in recent years, although most of the growth in Mexican imports to Canada was.
The Canadian direct investments in Mexico, always big in the mining sector, diversified with the expansion.
For the first time this summer, more new cars from Mexico entered Canada than from the USA, which largely obtains from car manufacturers such as GM and Volkswagen from their Mexican plants to avoid Canadian control persons that apply to American but not Mexican vehicles.
According to Flavio Volpe of the manufacturer’s association of automotive parts, Canadian politicians who reduced the relationship were wrong: “Donald Trump tried to put a wedge between us. We took the bait.”
He said “friends of the auto industry” quickly said that they didn’t need Mexico to defend the Canadian economy.
“Well, the truth is that we need Mexico to be wealthy as we do,” he said, pointing out to Mexico -based auto parts plants in Canada.
“When we talk to the Mexican government and Mexican interests, we speak as Mexican investors and Mexican employers.”
Different approaches, similar results
In the early days of the Trump government, Sheinbaum was announced by some international observers As a guide who had broken the code for dealing with a truculent US president.
Trump always spoke respectfully about Sheinbaum, as he has from Carney, in a sharp contrast to his humiliating tone towards former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The strategic decision of Mexico not to revenge itself to US tariffs enables a straight comparison. Before Canada dropped many of his counter -catchers, the white house of Canada and China was the only countries that were repelled.
But it is difficult to see how Mexico gained a real advantage with this approach, says Volpe.
“I think we’re both in the same boat,” he said.
“Benign neglect”
Both sides have often talked about expanding the free trade outside of Cusma, but also not much contributed to promoting the idea, says Carlo Dade from Canada West Foundation, member of the Mexican Council for external relationships ((Mexican Council for Exterior Relations) (Comxi).
“There is a baseline of kind neglect,” he said. “We do not use any possibilities, but we do not cause any problems. I would characterize it because we returned there after the prime ministers of Alberta and Ontario have been dull and thrown Mexico under the bus.”
Dade said that even within Cusma neither Mexico nor Canada “fully exploited the entire agreement”.
The speech of a new Canada-Mexico trade corridor has not yet moved beyond the inspiring phase. A Mexican official who spoke to CBC News on the background said that Mexico has doubts about the capacity of the Canadian infrastructure in order to deal with the trade, which by definition should mainly be at sea around the United States.
Mexico has several ports on every coast, especially Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas on the Pacific and Veracruz and Altamira on the Golf. Manzanillo will carry out a large extent by 2030, which enables him to cope with the equivalent of five million containers per year – twice as large as the band, which moves through the ports of Montreal and Vancouver.
The plan of port of Montreal, a new terminal in Contrechoeur, Que. At the end of its construction in 2030, the terminal in the Montérégie region will take over more than a million containers a year.
Mexican officials strive to discuss the extensions of these two Canadian ports (one of which is one Carney’s main project list) and the possible construction of committed facilities to support the Canada-Mexico trade with goods such as minerals and parts used in the construction of electric vehicles.
According to Dade, there is the possibility for the countries to merging goods for the cultivation of Asian and South American markets-and they have a competitive advantage over the USA to do so as members of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for the transacipical partnership.
“It has nothing to do with Donald Trump, has nothing to do with the USA. We could actually work together in the Pacific, but we don’t have it,” he said.
But Dade warned that they have to be discreet; It makes no sense to spit in the eye of the Trump administration.
“What we don’t want to see is to work together or to work on how we will work together in the USA,” he said.
“We have to work together quietly, but we can’t boast ourselves publicly.”
