Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  Yes, I did. With respect to buy American, we have an exemption under the government procurement agreement at the WTO. With buy America the U.S. has never made any commitments at the government procurement agreement to capture those kinds of programs, so it is within its rights t

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes, we are actively engaged in trying to ensure that we have good access and good relationships to those other markets. Because of CPTPP we do have free trade relations with Japan. We have the same with Vietnam. We have a separate agreement with South Korea. We are exploring a

Canada-China Relations committee  When we're saying there's potential for a free trade agreement with China, we're looking at the China of today. We've been involved in a number of free trade negotiations in recent years, some quite large ones, and it's always a matter of trying to match up how your partner's eco

Canada-China Relations committee  I don't think we could say that it harmed U.S. efforts to negotiate the new NAFTA other than through the fact that they were occupied with a number of different negotiations taking place at the same time. In terms of their level of attention and focus on different negotiations, t

Canada-China Relations committee  It is an ongoing analysis that we do as to when is the right time to take that further step. Part of the issue is that there are some ongoing technical discussions happening, and if we feel there is some forward movement in those discussions, then that could be a quicker way to r

Canada-China Relations committee  There are a number of aspects to that issue. There are negotiations ongoing at the WTO now that involve electronic commerce. We are trying to advance those negotiations and so far we are making some progress on that front. If you're getting into some of the other issues that have

Canada-China Relations committee  I think the main challenge we had in moving forward with the free trade agreement at that time—and this was, as you'll recall, back in 2017—was that we had different perspectives on what we were looking for in a free trade agreement. China was looking for an agreement that would

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes, it's quite true that we and many other countries around the world have had concerns about excess production of both steel and aluminum coming out of China and the resulting distortions in the world market. You will recall that the U.S. initiated the so-called section 232 m

Canada-China Relations committee  I would think it would be difficult to see a direct relationship between the appointment of the ambassador and an increase or an improvement in the trade situation. I think it's safe to say that we have seen somewhat of an improvement in the relationship, in the sense that we hav

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chairman, as was mentioned, we have been engaged in exploring improving commercial relations with China for many, many years. We successfully negotiated a foreign investment protection agreement with them a number of years ago. We explored in depth the possibility of a pote

Canada-China Relations committee  I'll ask my colleague François to respond to that.

Canada-China Relations committee  Fred, can I ask you to respond to that?

Canada-China Relations committee  We have not seen any real impact on our exports of wood and most other products. In fact, we've seen some gains in some products in modest ways. However, out of the ones that have been mentioned, we have not seen a significant drop.

Canada-China Relations committee  Well, at this point, Mr. Chair, it's still fairly early days. The agreement has not yet come into effect. I think it comes into effect on February 14. We will have to see how the trade actually starts to take place. Much of what China has undertaken to do, in terms of accepting c

Canada-China Relations committee  We have the current trade deficit. At this point in time, if we look at 2018, our exports to China were worth about $27.6 billion. Our imports from China were $75.6 billion. Obviously, the difference between the two is the deficit.