The Minister of Finance, François-Philippe, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, is in Mexico to meet with President Claudia Sheinbaum while the Canadian government seeks to boost economic ties with its ally in the midst of a commercial war with the United States.
The Champagne office said that the two senior cabinet ministers will meet Sheinbaum on Tuesday. Champagne is also meeting with interested parties that have a Canadian presence in Mexico, even in the aerospace, energy and banking sectors.
“The meetings will be constructive in that regard: observe the markets, analyze diversification, consider the strengthening of our association with our Mexican colleagues,” Champagne told Radio-channel in Trois-Rivières, who, on Monday afternoon.
The sources of the major Canadian government told CBC News that the objective of the two -day visit is to advance in the bilateral relationship of Canada with Mexico and strengthen commercial ties.
The news of the trip was first reported on Sunday night by the world and mail.
Champagne said the visit “is complementary to what we have been saying: that we need to interact with strategic partners around the world. And if you look at the [Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement] As a negotiation block, that is the second largest commercial block in the world. “
“Therefore, it is important for us to interact with our Mexican friends,” added the Minister of Finance.
A source told CBC that the trip “has to do with the construction of relations”, and the meeting of two ministers with Sheinbaum will lay the foundations for a future bilateral meeting between the Mexican president and Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Carney and Sheinbaum have spoken at least four times since the prime minister assumed the position.
In June, the two gathered at the G7 Leaders Summit in Alberta. A press release Published on the Carney website He said he and Sheinbaum agreed to “deepen bilateral collaboration at the ministerial level” and “they hoped to meet again in Mexico in the coming months.”
Arturo Sarukhan, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, told CBC News that he thinks that “it is time for coordination between Mexican and Canadian governments to start seriously.”
“There has really been very little participation in terms of how we can both get involved together in front of a common commercial partner who is eviscaing all the rules of commerce that have built this incredible success story of North America trade in the last three decades,” Sarukhan said.
Trump extends the rate agreement with Mexico
The visit of the Canadians arrives days after the president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced that he had agreed with Sheinbaum to extend an existing commercial agreement with Mexico for 90 days and continue the conversations during the period with the aim of signing a new agreement.
“Mexico will continue to pay a 25% fentanyl tariff, a 25% rate on cars and 50% of the steel, aluminum and copper rate,” Trump said in a social position of truth. “In addition, Mexico has agreed to immediately end its non -tariff commercial barriers, of which there were many.”
Canada did not get an extension. Trump signed an executive order that collects tariffs on Canadian goods that do not comply with Cusma to 35 percent.
The size for Cusma compatible products means that very few Canadian products will really be subjected to the high rate.
The president of the United States criticized the “lack of cooperation” of Canada by stopping the southern fentanyl flow and for taking reprisals against their existing tariffs.
With commercial negotiations with the United States apparently at a dead point, a delegation of Canadian ministers addressed Mexico to establish a more direct commercial relationship.
Sarukhan said that Sheinbaum “avoided the great presidential thug pulpit, participating in the round trip that Trump loves,” but Mexico has also inclined Trump’s knee. American officials have called Canada and China as the only countries that retaliate against Trump’s tariffs.
On Sunday, Canada’s Minister of Commerce, Dominic Leblanc, said he hopes Carney and Trump have a conversation between them “in the next few days.”
Leblanc left Washington earlier this week without a commercial agreement, but told the presenter Margaret Brennan, presenter of CBS’s Face the nation, that came out of discussions “with a better understanding of US concerns in the commercial relationship.
“So we are prepared to stay and do the necessary job,” Leblanc added.
