Foreign Affairs minister Chrystia Freeland visits Hamilton

During a meeting with Hamilton’s Chamber of Commerce, Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s Foreign Affair Minister says she felt encouraged that the city is set to benefit greatly from the new NAFTA deal or USMCA.

“Hamilton which is in this brilliant port location is one of the cities that’s ideally in place to take advantage of all of that access. I think that’s a great opportunity and I heard a lot of enthusiasm about that around the table.”

Freeland added that now that the trade deal is in place, Canada is the only G7 country that has trade agreements with every other G7 country.

She also expressed her growing frustration with the still imposed U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium and how her feelings are being mirrored south of the border.

“We’re now hearing publicly a lot of Americans, American businesses, American workers including the steel workers, American legislatures calling for the tariffs against Canada to be dropped and that is something we support.’

According to Freeland, getting to that point hasn’t been discussed much. She says she and her American counterpart Robert Lighthizer met in the beginning of October in her Toronto home over dinner. While they’ve been in touch since, an in-person meeting probably won’t happen for a few weeks.

Freeland also steered clear from assuming how the Democrats rule of the house following this week’s midterm elections would affect the future of USMCA..