Thank you for your question, Mr. Cannings.
I don't think Canada needs to turn to a dispute settlement body, either through CUSMA or the WTO. Canada really came out ahead following the negotiations that led to the most recent version of the act. For the time being, we are receiving preferential treatment, as compared with other countries.
As I said earlier, my concern is that other countries will turn to the WTO's dispute settlement body to challenge the act. The outcome of any such process would probably be highly uncertain, given that the U.S.'s refusal to appoint new judges has stalled the body. Similarly, I don't see how Canada would benefit from filing a challenge of the act and requesting a panel under CUSMA. That means the Europeans or the Chinese would likely be the ones to file a complaint with the WTO's dispute settlement body, although the impact would be rather limited since it is possible that the decision might never be implemented.
The fact remains that the people in the U.S. who worked on this act are very competent people, and they know full well that the act violates international trade rules. For decades, under our multilateral trading system, a country could choose to flout the law and simply accept the consequences, for instance, paying a tax or duty. In fact, we could do that if the Americans were acting in good faith, but I don't mean to imply that they aren't. That said, we could go down that road within the framework of multilateral trade negotiations, if the Americans were to say that their priority was to maintain the act even if it was illegal and that they would pay countervailing duties.