> Some Members of Parliament have also advocated for increasing trade barriers on Chinese imports alongside the United States, which the Canadian government has recently begun doing unilaterally. Suggesting Canada could be interested in coordinating those China-related trade policy measures across all three USMCA members, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland recently said she sympathizes with US concerns that “Mexico is not acting the way that Canada and the US are when it comes to its economic relationship with China.”
That doesn't seem to support canada wanting to renogtiate usmca. The best way of handling that issue is probably not renegotiation (its way too specific of a situation to write a clause into the agreement for). Furthermore, Chrystia freeland hasn't been deputy PM for four months now, and the situation has changed a lot since then (not to mention we also have a new prime minister since then). At the time of that statement i don't think there was much appetitie for renegotiating usmca.
Compared to now where our current PM is straight up saying "The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperations, is over"
> A broader change to the USMCA also looks likely, with Carney saying there had been “so many violations” that the free trade agreement needs “a renegotiation”.
Trump tariffs are based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977, overriding USMCA and other trade agreements. Any renegotiation of USMCA wouldn't stop the potential use of IEEPA to selectively override parts of USMCA v2.
It's more likely that USMCA violations referenced by Carney and Freeland were done by Mexico/China, at the economic expense of both Canada and USA.
All trade agreements are about surrendering some domestic power. What act or other domestic legal instrument is used is irrelavent.
In context it seems very unlikely this is about mexico, as carney is running on a platform of closer integration with mexico and strongly distancing canada ecconomically from the united states. Carney's ecconomic policies are not identical to the previous administration - it makes about as much sense to refer to trudeau/freeland's statements as it would to try and explain trump's policies by referencing things biden said/did.
> Some Members of Parliament have also advocated for increasing trade barriers on Chinese imports alongside the United States, which the Canadian government has recently begun doing unilaterally. Suggesting Canada could be interested in coordinating those China-related trade policy measures across all three USMCA members, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland recently said she sympathizes with US concerns that “Mexico is not acting the way that Canada and the US are when it comes to its economic relationship with China.”