4 days ago
Swift News
Prime Minister Mark Carney heads to Mexico Thursday with two separate, but related, goals.
The first is to find ways to work with Mexico to preserve North America-wide free trade, or at least as much of it as can be saved from the most protectionist U.S. administration in a century.
The second is to develop a bilateral trading relationship with Mexico that operates independently of the whims of the White House, and can survive whatever fate lies in store for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) when its renegotiation finally happens.
The trip is expected to produce an agreement on a new Canada-Mexico comprehensive partnership and a security dialogue focused on issues such as transnational crime and drug-smuggling.
"We are focused on elevating our partnerships in trade, commerce, security and energy," Carney said in a written statement before his departure for Mexico City. "Together, we will build stronger supply chains, create new opportunities for workers and deliver greater prosperity and certainty for both Canadians and Mexicans."
But there has also been some turbulence in the relationship, as there was during U.S. President Donald Trump's first term, and the trip is an effort to build trust between the two partners that neither will throw the other under the bus.
