Canada has not invited the United States to their upcoming trade meeting because they don’t share that same vision as the rest of the nations do. The meeting’s main goal is to save the international trading system and due to the recent tariffs placed into effect by the Trump administration, they don’t believe that the US is like-minded in saving the ITS.
Canada will be hosting 13 other countries that they deem act in the same manner as to preserve international trade where they will have a two day discussion in Ottawa later October. Jim Carr, Canada’s international trade diversification minister, said that the 13 countries will brainstorm ideas of how they can reform the World Trade Organization.
Carr stated that the countries that he will be assembling want to persuade Washington and other nations of the importance of the WTO. He also mentioned that the best way to do this would be to exclude the US for the time being.
The international trade diversification minister also mentioned that Canada is keeping an open mind on how they can address international trade disputes but the best way to push the new WTO is to set up a rules based system.
He also mentioned that in order to persuade America they would need to try a lot harder and have resolution mechanisms in place especially for new agreements such as the US-Mexico-Canada agreement.
