KUALA LUMPUR: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week and is ready to sit down for trade talks with Donald Trump as soon as the United States president is prepared to do so, he said on Monday (Oct 27).
While he is open to further talks with the US, he will reject any trade deal that is not in the best interest of Canadians, he told reporters on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur.
“We are going to fight for Canadians,” Carney said.
Last Thursday, Trump announced he was cutting off trade talks with Canada after an Ontario political ad used a snippet of Republican icon and former President Ronald Reagan saying tariffs cause trade wars and economic disaster. Trump also announced an additional 10 per cent tariffs on goods from Canada on Saturday.
Carney said he has not been in contact with Trump since Thursday, but has let the US president know that he is available.
“We stand ready to sit down with the US, myself, with the president, my colleagues, with their colleagues, when the US is ready to sit down,” Carney said.
“We will both be at APEC,” he added. He is also set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC meeting.
Trump, who flew out of Malaysia on Monday morning, has said he does not intend to meet with Carney on his Asian trip. Both men are due to attend the APEC summit later this week.
“I don’t want to meet with him (Carney). No, I’m not going to be meeting with him for a while,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
Carney was on his first official visit to Asia, attempting to deepen trade and security ties at a time when the North American country is struggling to reduce its overwhelming dependence on the US and redefine its foreign policy to pursue new markets.
“To double our non-US exports, our government is working to strike a series of new trade deals, including here in the Indo-Pacific,” Carney told reporters.
Carney said it will soon start talks for a new free trade deal with the Philippines and is ramping up a wider agreement between Ottawa and ASEAN by next year.
Canada’s pivot to new markets comes as relations with its North American neighbour have soured under Trump.
