Mr. Speaker, in June, I asked whether the government would consider sanctioning President Trump's personal business interests in order to lift the American tariffs from our steel and aluminum exports.
I would like to begin by mentioning the high cost of these tariffs for our country. Not only have they reduced current exports and cost jobs in the present, they are also hurting investments in Canada's steel and aluminum industries, which will be costing our economy and employment in the long term as well.
What has the government done so far? Well, it has applied reciprocal tariffs on American steel and aluminum coming into our country. It also has retaliatory tariffs targeting products coming from politically sensitive American electoral districts. While that was a very clever type of retaliation, I really think it has run its course, given that they had American mid-term elections yesterday, with whatever political consequences have been felt. Unfortunately, the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs still apply to Canadian exports. Therefore, we need to look at other options.
As I suggested back in June, one option could be to sanction the personal business interests of President Trump. Unlike previous American presidents, he has not divested his business assets. This makes him uniquely vulnerable to the possibility of sanctions from other countries. I would like to hear what the government's response is to that option.
I think another option we need to look at involves the recently agreed to USMCA. Just this evening, CBC reported that our ambassador to the United States has indicated that the Prime Minister will not participate in a signing ceremony as long as the American steel and aluminum tariffs remain in place. However, it does seem that the government is prepared to go ahead and sign the agreement. CNN interviewed the Prime Minister, and he said, “We're not at the point of saying that we wouldn't sign if it wasn't lifted, although we're trying to make that case.”
It sounds as though the government is prepared to go ahead and sign the USMCA, even if American tariffs continue to apply to Canadian steel and aluminum exports. I think that is a big problem.
One of the obvious goals of a free trade agreement should be to not have that type of tariff in place between our two countries. Therefore, I find it concerning that the government is already signalling, by way of this interview the Prime Minister did on CNN, that the government is prepared to go ahead and sign the USMCA, even if the U.S. keeps these tariffs in place. I think we need our government to take a much stronger stand on that point, and we really need to see some strong action to get these American tariffs off our steel and aluminum exports.
To sum up, we have these American tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum being sold south of the border. It is imposing huge costs on Canada's economy and on Canadian workers. My constituents and other Canadians need to know what the government's plan is and what the government's timeline will be to have these American tariffs removed.
