(Bloomberg) -- Canada’s deputy prime minister highlighted her country’s tougher approach to Chinese exports, seeking to gain favor with Donald Trump and his key advisers ahead of his return to power in Washington.
Chrystia Freeland said the Canadian government shares the same concerns as Trump’s team with China’s “intentional policy of overcapacity,” which is why Canada recently matched US tariffs on Chinese steel, aluminum and electric vehicles.
Freeland said she has kept in touch with Robert Lighthizer, who was the US trade representative in the first Trump administration and is likely to play a major economic policy role in the next one. Lighthizer and Freeland spoke a few times on Tuesday and discussed China earlier this year, she said, adding that it’s “an area where Ambassador Lighthizer and I are very strongly in agreement.”
Her comments, made during a news conference in Ottawa, show how Canada will try to shield itself from Trump’s promise to impose a sweeping set of global tariffs once he takes office. The Republican president-elect has pledged a minimum 10% tariff on everything the US imports, and has not promised any exemptions for Canada. Freeland and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will try to make the case that they’re aligned with a number of key US goals, including its strategy for competing with China.
Freeland also tried to reassure Canadians that the government is fully prepared for a review of the US-Mexico-Canada trade pact scheduled for 2026, and said Canadian officials have been “very conscientious, very systematic” about maintaining relationships with Trump’s team.
She flattered Trump’s negotiating skills, noting that the current version of the trade agreement, created in 2018, “is Donald Trump’s deal.”
“He signed it, he and his team negotiated it,” Freeland said. “He is proud of it, and I think he’s right to be proud of it.”
Freeland’s news conference was part of a broader effort on Wednesday by Trudeau and his officials to calm fears that Trump will wreak havoc on trade — and thus on Canada’s export-driven economy.
Trudeau said he looks forward to “working with President Trump once again to strengthen North American economic opportunities for middle class.”
“We’ve been preparing for this,” Trudeau said. “We’re looking forward to doing this work, and we’re going to make sure that this extraordinary friendship and alliance between Canada and the United States continues to be a real benefit to Canadians.”
Freeland said Trump understands that Canada-US trade is “good for American workers.”
“Our partnership in no way undercuts American workers, and I know that that is at the heart of the concerns of President Trump and his team, because that is at the heart of our new NAFTA deal that we concluded with them,” Freeland said.
Meanwhile, Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party is far ahead in the polls and appears poised to win the next election, congratulated Trump in a social media post. He said the US “is Canada’s best friend and biggest trading partner, and I will work with the president to benefit both countries.”
Poilievre warned that Trump’s plans to cut taxes, and the fact that Canada has a carbon tax, create a risk that “hundreds of thousands more jobs” will start relocating south of the border.
(Updates to include comments from Freeland’s news conference.)
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