EXCLUSIVE: Canada, U.S. nowhere near deal as CUSMA deadline approaches: Hoekstra

OTTAWA – With little more than a week before the July 1 deadline to either renew or review the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra says officials are nowhere near the finish line.

“We’re not anywhere close to announcing any type of a framework or an interim agreement,” Hoekstra told CTV News chief political correspondent Vassy Kapelos in a wide-ranging broadcast exclusive interview.

“I really think it’s in the hands now, on our side, it’s going to be the president, and I’m assuming on the Canadian side it will be the prime minister, to determine what the next steps are and directionally, where we’re headed,” Hoekstra added.

The trilateral trade deal, signed during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term, is nearing an important deadline. By July 1, officials in all three countries must notify their counterparts whether they want to renew CUSMA for a 16-year period or agree to an annual review process.

Canada and Mexico have both already formally declared they want to seek a 16-year extension of CUSMA, but the U.S. position remains unclear.

While Canadian officials try to allay concerns about the state of negotiations — including Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. Mark Wiseman suggesting last week everybody should “take a breath” and “relax” — Trump once again slammed the agreement.

Following the G7 Leaders’ Summit in France last week, Trump said he would rather leave CUSMA unsigned and have it immediately terminated, though in the same exchange with reporters he also also signalled he may sign the deal.

Asked whether Trump has conveyed to him his current position on the trilateral trade deal, Hoekstra said he would leave it up to the president to “outline with clarity exactly where he is when he’s ready and prepared to make an announcement.”

Pressed on a timeline for that, Hoekstra said it could be ahead of next week’s CUSMA deadline, or sometime in July, adding: “I don’t think it will go into August.”

“But I’ve been wrong before, and I could be wrong again,” he said.

The ambassador said the next step should be a discussion between Trump and Carney, and for the two leaders to lay out the state of talks, where they’re headed and the direction they’ve given their respective teams.

Hoekstra points to failed October deal

During the interview — when asked whether he believes the White House wants to reach a new deal with Canada and to keep CUSMA in place — Hoekstra pointed to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trip to Washington to meet with Trump last October.

“We were very willing,” Hoekstra said. “We were actually kind of excited about the deal that we had in October, where we covered five critical areas: we covered oil, covered uranium, auto parts, steel, and aluminum.”

“That’s a pretty good deal. We were excited about that. The president was excited about it,” Hoekstra also said, categorizing the October agreement as having been reached “fairly quickly at 30,000 feet,” and saying it “would have been awesome.”

Following that meeting in the Oval Office, a readout from the Prime Minister’s Office stated Carney and Trump “identified opportunities for material progress in trade in steel, aluminum, and energy, and directed their teams to conclude this work in the coming weeks.”

And, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc described the two-and-a-half-hour meeting as “successful,” “positive,” and “effective,” though he did not offer up any tangible outcomes from the talks.

Asked why that type of deal to address sectoral tariffs is no longer possible, Hoekstra cited “what happened in October and November,” seemingly referencing an anti-tariff ad by the government of Ontario which featured the voice of former Republican U.S. president Ronald Reagan.

The ad prompted the U.S. administration to indefinitely terminate all trade talks with Canada, though informal discussions have since resumed.

“I think the prime minister has even said that they were very, very close to having an agreement, and then you know, poof, it’s all gone,” Hoekstra told Kapelos, adding Canada and the U.S. have yet to get fully “back on track” in the way the Americans have with Mexico.

In an emailed statement to CTV News on Tuesday, a spokesperson for LeBlanc said the minister is looking forward to meeting with his U.S. and Mexican counterparts on July 1.

“This will be an opportunity to build on the positive, constructive bilateral discussions he has had with both countries in recent weeks,” Jean-Sébastien Comeau wrote. “He is looking forward to continuing the work of supporting Canadian workers, farmers and businesses, on July 1 and beyond.”

In his wide-ranging interview with Kapelos, Hoekstra also discussed Trump’s remarks about making Canada the 51st state, the future of Norad and the possibility of Canada purchasing a mixed fighter jet fleet.

You can watch U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra’s full interview on CTV Question Period Sunday at 11 a.m. ET.

With files from CTV News’ Stephanie Ha