Embassy official says working with Canada will likely be less tempestuous than his last posting in Russia
Scott Reynolds has come to a peaceable kingdom after years of fractiousness in his past position.
Dealing with existing Canada-U.S. issues and problems should be a more positive experience than dealing with Russian-U.S. farm trade issues.
“I’ve been struck with the co-operation between industry and government between our two countries,” said Reynolds, the new agricultural attaché with the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.
“This is not something I would have said about my former assignment.”
Reynolds spent the last four years with the U.S. embassy in Russia, where issues were less easy to resolve than most Canada-U.S. issues.
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Canada and the United States have a gigantic agricultural trade relationship that mostly works smoothly, with billions of dollars of products flowing back and forth across the border without problems.
However, with such interconnectedness comes the potential for problems, of which there have been many over the decades: countervailing and dumping fights, phytosanitary standards, pesticide harmonization and ideological struggles such as those over the CWB and supply management.
Reynolds hopes to focus on minimizing the friction by resolving issues.
“Part of my job is working with the U.S. and Canadian governments on a few things to try to break down some barriers to trade, and maybe some of them aren’t barriers so much as irritants that somebody on one side of the border or other has when they try to sell something (on the other side),” said Reynolds.
Former attachés needed to be engaged with the decades-long debate over the fate of the CWB monopoly. Reynolds won’t need to immerse himself in the complexities of that issue.
“I will admit that I am glad that this is one issue that’s mostly taken off the table,” he said.
