A Powerful Country on the Other Side of the World is Quietly Shaping Trump’s Latest Trade Fight
President Donald Trump’s latest trade fight with Canada has a faraway force at its center: China.
As Washington presses Ottawa to do more to prevent Chinese steel, aluminum and other goods from reaching the U.S. market through North American supply chains, Canada is pursuing renewed economic ties with Beijing, adding a fresh complication to already tense trade talks.
At the heart of the fight is transshipment — routing goods through an intermediary country, sometimes after limited processing, before they reach their final market. U.S. officials fear steel and aluminum made in China or elsewhere could be processed in Canada or Mexico and then enter the United States as regional content.
The U.S. and Canada addressed that risk in a 2019 joint statement resolving an earlier steel-and-aluminum tariff dispute. The countries agreed to prevent steel and aluminum made outside the U.S. or Canada from being transshipped into the other country, and said they could distinguish between steel melted and poured in North America and steel made elsewhere.
U.S. trade hawks now argue Canada should accept tougher safeguards as Washington seeks to limit China’s role in critical manufacturing supply chains. (Read more from “A Powerful Country on the Other Side of the World is Quietly Shaping Trump’s Latest Trade Fight” HERE)
