The federal Conservative party critic for Canada-U.S. relations, Randy Hobeck says it didn’t have to come to this if the Trudeau Government had focused more. What he’s referring to are the additional tariffs on softwood lumber exports imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department.
Hobeck says the Trudeau Government had a year and a half to get a deal done and there was even a Memorandum of Understanding between the Prime Minister and then-President Obama.
He accuses the Federal Liberals of not focusing hard enough on getting a deal, pointing out Mexico recently came to an agreement with the U.S. on sugar, so it’s not as if it’s impossible not to come to a trade agreement with the Trump Administration.
Hobeck has no doubt Canada could legally win its case against the tariffs, but such an effort would be so time consuming, a lot of mills could go out of business in the meantime.