U.S. senators call for trade crackdown on Canada over dairy quotas, digital policies
WASHINGTON –
A pair of senior U.S. senators is urging the Biden administration to get robust with Canada for “flouting” obligations to its North American commerce companions.
Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Sen. Mike Crapo lay out their considerations in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
The letter says American dairy producers nonetheless do not get the entry to the Canadian market they’re entitled to underneath the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
It additionally describes Canada’s deliberate digital companies tax as discriminatory and raises comparable considerations about new laws to manage on-line streaming and news.
All three, the senators say, would give preferential remedy to Canadian content material and deny U.S. tech corporations honest entry to the market north of the border.
The letter comes after conferences this week in San Diego between U.S., Canadian and Mexican commerce emissaries, in addition to the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City earlier this month.
The USMCA, referred to in Canada as CUSMA, has been on the centre of quite a few bilateral and trilateral disputes because it went into impact in the summertime of 2020.
“Three years later, it is disappointing that Canada and Mexico have failed to come into full compliance with the agreement — and, in some cases, have flouted their obligations,” the senators write.
“USTR must take decisive action to ensure full compliance with the agreement and with dispute settlement panel findings. It is critical to ensure that every chapter of USMCA is fully and timely enforced.”
Canada and Mexico have their very own points with how the U.S. is deciphering the deal, which was signed in 2018 after protracted trilateral efforts to interchange NAFTA.
As the Mexico City summit wrapped up, a dispute panel dominated in opposition to the U.S. over the way it interprets the foundations that decide the origin of core automotive elements.
It stays unclear whether or not the U.S. plans to adjust to that call.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Jan. 27, 2023
