Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged Thursday to strengthen trade ties in reaction to US tariff threats.
The pledge was during Carney’s first trip to Mexico since taking office as Canada’s prime minister and amid economic tension between the three nations, which will host the FIFA 2026 World Cup next summer.
We plug the gap for the United States. We make them more powerful. We are more powerful together.”
Seeking greater relations in a time of uncertainty
The focal point of Carney and Sheinbaum’s conversation was the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, or USMCA, which is to be renegotiated in 2026.
Decades of free trade among the three nations have irreversibly tied their economies together: More than 75% of Canada’s exports and more than 80% of Mexico’s go to the US.
But US President Donald Trump’s constant and shifting menace of a trade war has kept the countries’ political and commercial elites in suspense, looking for steadier options for their trade.
“Trump dominates this visit. Mexico and Canada now have a shared threat from the US,” commented Nelson Wiseman, an emeritus professor at the University of Toronto.
Carney indicated on Thursday that he is expecting “much higher levels of trade, much higher levels of investment” between Mexico and Canada.
Mexico’s first woman president, Sheinbaum, had announced that the two countries agreed on a scheme that would “usher in a new era of further deepening economic ties” between them.
Sheinbaum said they would like to increase bilateral trade in several sectors under the free-trade agreement and achieve this by sea, which would circumvent having those products flow through the US.
A one-time, not-so-not-so-happy affair
Canada and Mexico have not been a happy couple. Canada’s provincial premiers discussed last year preventing Mexico from being included in a new free trade deal with the US.
According to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Trump’s comparison of Canada to Mexico was “the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard from our friends and closest allies, the United States of America.”
And Canadian Sen. Peter Boehm, who represented the Canadian government when Sheinbaum was sworn in as Mexico’s president last year, said the comments by the premiers, which he deemed out of their lane, upset the Mexicans.
“Mexicans are particularly sensitive on this point, and there was concern about that, no question,” Boehm, who has been calling for closer ties between the two governments, said.
Relations had soured recently, Boehm said, and Mexico appreciated Carney’s long-standing invitation of Sheinbaum to the G7 summit in Alberta in June.
Mexico is the third-largest Canadian trade partner after the US and China, and Canada was Mexico’s fifth-largest trading partner last year.