{"id":65473,"date":"2025-10-17T13:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2025\/10\/17\/87-of-world-trade-still-up-for-grabs-if-united-states-walks-away-from-cusma\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T13:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:27:08","slug":"87-of-world-trade-still-up-for-grabs-if-united-states-walks-away-from-cusma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2025\/10\/17\/87-of-world-trade-still-up-for-grabs-if-united-states-walks-away-from-cusma\/","title":{"rendered":"87% of world trade still up for grabs if United States walks away from CUSMA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<br \/><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Canada must prepare for worst in CUSMA trade talks\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yrXYqfY0nvY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p> Canada needs to be prepared for the economic consequences if the <\/p>\n<p>                        United States<\/p>\n<p>                         decides to withdraw from the Canada<\/p>\n<p>                        <span>\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n<p>                        U.S.<\/p>\n<p>                        <span>\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n<p>                        Mexico Agreement (<\/p>\n<p>                        CUSMA<\/p>\n<p>                        ), warned John Weekes, former chief negotiator of the North American Free Trade Agreement (<\/p>\n<p>                        NAFTA<\/p>\n<p>                        ). <\/p>\n<p> \u201cWe\u2019re not even sure that the United States really wants (CUSMA) to continue,\u201d he said in a recent interview with the Financial Post\u2019s Larysa Harapyn. \u201cWe have to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> The worst-case scenario, according to Weekes, would be that Canada\u2019s 30-year trading relationship with the U.S. is no longer sustainable. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cThe issue here is that we can\u2019t really control what the Americans are going to do. We can work with our partners in the United States and hope that they can influence the policy of the administration. The policy may change over the coming months as Americans realize that <\/p>\n<p>                        Trump\u2019s tariff policy<\/p>\n<p>                         isn\u2019t in their best interests, but you can\u2019t base a country\u2019s future on hope,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to look at how to do things on our own and with other partners.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> In addition to <\/p>\n<p>                        trade<\/p>\n<p>                         diversification, Weekes said Canada needs to make major reforms to its economy to make it stronger and encourage foreign investment in resource and infrastructure projects. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cThe United States accounts for about 13 per cent of world trade, so there\u2019s another 87 per cent of world trade that\u2019s up for grabs in the (World Trade Organization), and we shouldn\u2019t lose sight of that as we look ahead,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p> Weekes pointed to India as a country that Canada should try to have a better partnership with. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cThis country is now the world\u2019s fifth largest economy and expected to overtake Germany and Japan in fairly short order. We\u2019re taking about a country of equivalent strength perhaps in the coming years to China and the United States,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p> Weekes said that Canadians need to encourage the government to continue to move quickly on reforming the domestic economy with its liquefied natural gas, critical mineral and oil projects because of how difficult it\u2019s been to attract both foreign and domestic investment. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cA lot of Canadians are investing elsewhere,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p> That doesn\u2019t mean all of these projects need to be completed, however. Weekes said that there would be a lot of interest in new investment in Canada even in their planning stages. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cIf we could get through these hurdles in a year that would be quite a remarkable achievement,\u201d he said. \u201cThat would send a signal to investors that Canada really is open for business.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> The formal CUSMA review is expected to begin on July 1, 2026. <\/p>\n<ul class=\"related_links\">\n<li>Mark Carney under &#8216;tremendous pressure&#8217; to get U.S. trade deal, says Peter MacKay<\/li>\n<li>CUSMA: what\u2019s on the table for \u2018the big one\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <em>\u2022 Email: novid@postmedia.com<br \/> <\/em> <\/p>\n\n<br \/>87% of world trade still up for grabs if United States walks away from CUSMA<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>2025-10-17 13:27:08<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canada needs to be prepared for the economic consequences if the United States decides to withdraw from the Canada \u2013 U.S. \u2013 Mexico Agreement ( CUSMA ), warned John Weekes,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-65473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/65475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}