Calgary Chamber says trade negotiations ‘a tipping point’ in relationship with U.S.

As negotiations surrounding Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 50 per cent tariff on many Canadian imports tick down to the wire, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce said Alberta business owners are “very concerned” and “see this as an important signal on whether Canadian and U.S. trade is going to normalize or whether this is in fact going to continue to be the new normal.”

The Chamber’s vice president of policy and external affairs, Ruhee Ismail-Teja, said the “uncertainty in the trade relationship” over the past 18 months has forced many Canadians to adapt their businesses, attempting to focus more on internal trade (within Canada), finding new markets and new opportunities, adding the results of the current negotiations will “solidify” how they’re looking at the U.S. market over the long term.

While Ismail-Teja said provincial and federal governments have done a lot of work over the last 18 months to make sure that Canadian businesses are in a better spot, there are still a “significant” number of businesses who are reliant on the U.S. as a key export market and expanding markets within Canada is “not as easy as we think it needs to be.”

That, she said, along with things like higher tariffs and energy prices, has had a negative impact on business confidence.

“For anyone who’s looking to expand outside of Alberta, because there’s so much uncertainty as soon as you go outside of our borders, we also see that things like having CUSMA (Canada U.S. Mexico Free Trade Agreement) exemptions no longer in place really does disrupt businesses and the things they thought were stable no longer are and that does put a damper on the economy.”

Going forward, Ismail-Teja said, all levels of government must focus on not just restoring the Canada-U.S. trade relationship, but also a a much broader vision of regulatory competitiveness, labour mobility, improved supply chains, new trade agreements and new export markets with other countries.