OTTAWA — With a looming July deadline for American imposition of tariffs against Canadian grain imports, the two countries have agreed to meet in late June for what may be one last political effort to avert a trade war.
The Canadian government has sharpened its rhetoric in the cross-border shouting match and the American administration has shown some signs of being divided over how to deal with the Canadian question.
“There is no guarantee of success but I hope we can make progress to resolving this,” agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said last week as he announced that a meeting with U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Espy is planned.
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Goodale and trade minister Roy MacLaren last week announced the meeting, likely in Toronto sometime after June 15, during a week of extraordinary developments in the simmering trade dispute.
It began with Espy continuing his campaign to organize an international attack on the Canadian Wheat Board by insisting that Brazil, Argentina and Mexico all find board selling and pricing practices offensive.
It escalated as Canada counter-attacked in the Latin American capitals and turned up the volume of its own rhetoric against Washington.
Undermining free trade
MacLaren went to Washington to question whether the Clinton administration really believes in free trade, accusing it of undermining free trade agreements by trying to “appease domestic lobbies or to seize a short-term advantage.”
In Ottawa, Goodale called American complaints about the wheat board a “wild irony” since the U.S. export enhancement program is “the root of all evil when it comes to difficulties in the international grain trade.” He accused Espy of spreading disinformation and of orchestrating a “crusade” against Canada.
Prime minister Jean ChrŽtien joined the chorus in the House of Commons when he supported MacLaren’s unusually-blunt criticism of the Americans: “We are respecting the rules of the game and we want the Americans to do likewise,” he said.
Then came a bombshell. The U.S. ambassador to Canada joined the fray on the Canadian side.
James Blanchard called the CBC with a statement that Espy was not speaking for the White House in his international attacks on the Canadian Wheat Board.
“I don’t have any evidence to suggest that whatever’s going on in Brazil is something the President authorized or supports or is even aware of,” he said.
The U.S. embassy said afterwards Blanchard was not available to expand on his comment but a spokesperson said “the statement speaks for itself. The message was clear.”
Asked if it could be assumed the ambassador’s comments were authorized by the White House, the spokesman said: “That would be a fair assumption.”
