In general, it's a long-term trend since China's accession to the WTO, which has not led them to adopt pure market-based reforms and to integrate fairly into a multilateral trading system. Instead, it has been a very strategic sector-by-sector approach to try to increase production, oversubsidize specific industries and dump them on world markets to try to undermine production of those goods and services in other countries.
In general, while organizations like ours are not in favour of tariffs or of trying to protect domestic producers, we are a trade-exposed industry, and our members compete on that basis.
When you have “trading partners” who are not abiding by the same rules and are seeking not just to sell to those who wish to buy but also to actively undermine global markets, it's not only something we should be concerned about on behalf of Canadian manufacturers but also something that we know there's a bipartisan focus on in the U.S. We hope it's an area where Canada and the U.S. can align on our approach, dealing with and managing goods that are being dumped on the market in that manner.
