Canada worries about Biden’s ‘Buy American’ after Keystone blow

Canada is uneasy about President Joe Biden’s planned “Buy American” provisions and will press the case against moves that would harm the countries’ $725 billion trade relationship, according to Canada’s top diplomat.

Biden is expected to sign an executive order this week urging federal agencies to buy goods and services from U.S. companies. Marc Garneau, Canada’s foreign minister, said he expects the new administration will discuss the measures with Justin Trudeau’s government.

“President Biden is aware of it and the Prime Minister made that very clear that we are concerned about Buy American policies, because it actually harms our bilateral trading relationship which is so tightly integrated,” Garneau said in a television interview with CBC News.

The U.S. and Canada exchanged nearly $2 billion a day in goods and services in 2019, making it “the world’s most comprehensive trading relationship,” according to the State Department. Some industries, such as the automotive sector, have highly-connected supply chains that span the border.

“Sometimes, some of the products that we sell to the United States already have American components in them. And those are messages that we carried a lot during the Nafta 2 negotiations” with the Trump administration, Garneau added.

The minister’s remarks come after Biden dealt Trudeau a blow on inauguration day by revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline that would have taken more than 800,000 barrels a day of crude from western Canada to Nebraska.