Canada-China Relations committee  That is 2018.

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes, we have seen some drops. We do have data for January to November 2019. We have seen a drop in our merchandise exports by 14.7%. Imports from China have decreased by 0.4%. Our overall bilateral trade has seen a decrease of 4.4%.

Canada-China Relations committee  I think the issue on pork and beef was more of a legitimate issue surrounding export certificates. We did not see any kind of political interference in that particular issue. I will ask my colleague Fred Gorrell if he has anything to add to that.

Canada-China Relations committee  I will let Fred respond to that as well.

Canada-China Relations committee  Thank you and good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. We are pleased to have this opportunity to update the committee on recent challenges facing the Canada-China trade relationship and ways in which the government is seeking to improve conditions for Canadian expor

International Trade committee  We haven't had that discussion at the negotiating table.

International Trade committee  Absolutely. I think we would all be far better off if we preserved the trilateral agreement and renegotiated NAFTA to improve it, to make it more effective in a trilateral context, in a North American context. That's our strongest preference by far. That is the best outcome we ca

International Trade committee  Do you mean on the sunset clause?

International Trade committee  We're spending a lot of time trying to negotiate legal language that will be binding and subject to enforceable dispute settlement. That is the primary purpose of developing free trade agreements with other countries: to have a very secure environment for investors to establish t

International Trade committee  The U.S. proposal would address every single chapter, the entire agreement.

International Trade committee  Yes. There are various elements we would like to modernize in NAFTA. One of them at the top of the list is certainly electronic commerce, which did not, to all intents and purposes, exist at the time NAFTA was first negotiated. We need to bring those newer issues related to advan

International Trade committee  Yes. We've been working very closely with the representatives from Quebec, in particular Monsieur Bachand. I meet with him regularly. I meet with the Quebec delegation regularly, along with other provinces and territories as well. That will obviously be a particular priority when

International Trade committee  We would certainly argue that there is no win if the U.S. were to withdraw from NAFTA in any of those areas. There was a lot of trade in the agriculture sector in particular. You mentioned food security. We obviously don't produce the full range of food products within Canada.

International Trade committee  That is something we have been pursuing for some time in various fora. Even before this NAFTA renegotiation began, we were trying to advance that proposal in various other discussions that we've had with the U.S. on government procurement initiatives, particularly their Buy Ameri

International Trade committee  In some ways it's difficult to provide a lot of specifics for that kind of analysis. Clearly, if the U.S. did withdraw from NAFTA, Canada and the U.S. would probably continue to be each other's largest trading partner, just because of the fundamental economics around that. In a