US, Canada trade teams may meet soon, officials say

WASHINGTON: US and Canadian trade officials spoke on Wednesday (Feb 25) and plan to meet in the coming weeks, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said, adding that the Trump administration was open to their ideas on how to reach an agreement.

A spokesperson for Ottawa's Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc told Reuters that the two officials have "had a number of brief, informal exchanges in recent days about a potential in-person meeting in Washington, DC, in the near future."

Greer, in an interview on Fox Business Network, said he spoke with his trade counterpart earlier on Wednesday and that they would meet in Washington "in a couple weeks".

"They have a few ideas on how they might want to have a deal with us. We're obviously open to that," Greer told FBN's "Mornings with Maria" program. "We're open to talk, and we'll see what they have to say."

US-Canada tensions have grown in recent months over trade and other issues as Trump has turned his ire on Washington's northern neighbour.

The Trump administration is reviewing the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact enacted during Trump's first term in the White House and faces a Jul 1 deadline to notify Congress whether it plans to change the agreement.

Greer said US officials are focused on moving production of cars and other goods back to the US. 

But the reshoring of critical supply chains is not happening fast enough under the current pact, he said in a separate interview with CBC News, expressing concern that China will funnel goods through Canada to avoid certain tariffs as Beijing and Ottawa seek to develop closer ties.

"We don't want a situation where Canada's being used as a back door for Chinese goods," he told CBC reporter Katie Simpson late on Tuesday in a video posted on X.

"If Canada wants to agree that we can have some level of higher tariff on them while they open their markets to us on things like dairy and other things, then that's a helpful conversation," Greer added.

Trump has said Washington could leave the USMCA and strike separate deals with Canada and Mexico as his administration pursues separate talks with each bordering country.

Greer told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday that he would continue separate negotiations with representatives of Canada and Mexico over the coming year "because our relationships with those countries are so different".

One solution could be to "tack on" separate protocols for each nation onto the USMCA "to fix some of the gaps", he said.

LeBlanc will continue working with Greer on a joint review of the pact, his spokesperson said.