Canada Looks To Deepen Relationship With Mexico

This past week marked a major step to strengthen Canada’s working relationship with Mexico.  A trade mission with the largest number of people involved in Canada’s history included several hundred business leaders and government officials flying to Mexico City.  A formal Memorandum of Understanding was signed, laying out a roadmap for a number of trade sectors.

Most years, Mexico has been Canada’s third-largest trading partner, but it only accounts for about one percent of Canadian exports. The government agency Export Development Canada said that Mexican trade has not expanded like it should have, only because of the historically huge, convenient, and reliable role the United States has played in Canadian trade.

Shauna Hemingway is Canada’s senior trade and political advisor to Mexico and Latin America.  She says that if Canada hopes to succeed in meeting Prime Minister Carney’s goal of doubling non-U.S. exports in the next decade, Mexico offers obvious opportunities.  Hemingway thinks that this new MOU will offer a clearer path forward…tape.

“I think Mexico has been looking to capture Canada’s attention for many years. What we need to do is start to take a much more sophisticated look at the Mexican market. We have had this tendency to see each other through the lens of the United States, but we need to have a strategy for each other. This MOU will strengthen those business-to-business ties, building our collaboration going forward.” 

Both countries benefit from existing supply-chain connections. And both countries are signatories to the existing Trans-Pacific Partnership, which President Trump walked away from early in his first term. Deeper engagement with Mexico by Canada could also serve as a gateway to Latin American markets.

Arturo Saruhkahn is a former Mexican ambassador to the United States who continues to watch U.S. trade and politics closely. He says that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has made it clear that it wants to re-negotiate the USMCA Review separately with Canada and Mexico.

“Canada’s taking seriously the need to deepen and widen Mexican collaboration. It certainly comes at an important moment. Now’s the time to present common fronts. It seems likely that the upcoming review of the USMCA will proceed in two parallel, bilateral tracks. Our commonality of positions makes us both stronger. I think that could be a very important signal to Washington, D.C.”

And, this week, Canada’s newest Ambassador presented his credentials to President Trump. Mark Wiseman is a global investment banker and a longtime friend of Prime Minister Mark Carney. Wiseman will be a key player in the upcoming USMCA Review as he replaces Kirsten Hillman, who served in that post for the past six years.

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