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'Can't be just a photo-op': business leader says of Three Amigos summit

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President and CEO of the Business Council of Canada Goldy Hyder says there must be substantive discussions and clear objectives when leaders meet at this week’s Three Amigos summit in Washington.

Hyder says the highly-anticipated meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Joe Biden, and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador must be more than a “photo-op.”

“There are significant issues that are both challenges but also opportunities. We have to stop behaving in North America as three independent countries and see what’s going on around the world. Countries are coming together in Asia, in Europe, advancing collective regional interests,” Hyder said on CTV’s Question Period on Sunday.

Last week, the council released a list of concerns they would like to see raised.

The Nov. 18 meeting, formally known as the North American Leaders' Summit, will be the first since 2016.

Hyder said he’s hoping Trudeau will address Biden’s “protectionist” economic and social spending package, dubbed the Build Back Better Act.

“We are nations of free traders, we believe in the trade agreement. We just signed and renewed a very significant document that took a lot of effort, a collective effort on the part of governments and business and labour. We need to honour that agreement,” he said, speaking about the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.

In the act is a proposed tax credit of up to US$12,500 for buyers of made-in-America electric vehicles, sparking concerns from Canadian automakers.

“This isn’t an executive order from a crazy president, this is a rational actor using a congressional instrument to put into place something that is immediately injurious,” Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, told CTV News.

On Monday, Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill dubbed the “Buy American Law” due to its reliance on U.S.-based contractors and suppliers.

The bill included a set of executive orders that called on the U.S. government to "buy American and increase the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, including through implementing the act's made-in-America requirements and bolstering domestic manufacturing and manufacturing supply chains."

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trudeau said protectionist laws have the potential to harm the economies of all three countries.

"It’s counterproductive for Americans to put in place even more barriers and limitations on trade between our two countries,” he said in French.

“This is an issue I’ve raised very often already with President Biden and it’s certainly going to be part of conversations this week.”

In speaking to reporters on Monday, Trudeau said the bill had the potential to harm the economies of all three countries.

"It really is counterproductive for Americans to put in place even more barriers and limitations on trade between our two countries,” he said in French.

Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman says when it comes to issues where U.S. domestic policy objectives put Canada in a “difficult position or at a disadvantage,” Canadian representatives will push back.

“We will bring our arguments to the table as to why those are not good choices. And they're not good choices necessarily for Canada of course, but they're not good choices for Americans, and that's what we've been saying," she said on CTV’s Question Period.

Hillman said she expects pandemic recovery and resiliency, climate change, migration, the economy will be top of mind at the summit.

“This meeting is about getting the three leaders in our neighborhood together as you say for the first time in a very long time and after a moment that’s been very difficult for all three countries,” she said.

With files from CTV News' Joyce Napier, CTVNews.ca Writer Ben Cousins and The Canadian Press

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