Transcription
Let me ask you to put, uh, not only your prime minister hat on, but, uh, uh, you've been a central bank governor, you've been an investor, you've been finance. Uh, looking, looking around the world now, you've got China sort of playing by its own playbook economically, including a lot of excess capacity that's being exported to the rest of the world.
You have the US playing by its own playbook, uh, uh, ignoring various agreements, including at times USMCA. Uh, what does it mean if the two largest economies of the world are playing by their own set of rules? What does that mean for the rules-based system for a middle power like Canada?
Yeah. Well, and do you keep on playing by the rules even if nobody else?
Okay. So that, this, the key. So who else is willing to play by the rules and can you get critical mass in that? That's, that's one of the big questions. So, and nobody's perfect in this. Uh, but one of the things about the European Union is it's a rule-based system. Sometimes there's too many rules and they're playing by too many rules, but it is a rules-based system. Uh, we have a free trade agreement, uh, with the European Union. Um, CPTP newer, uh, the US made a decision not to be, uh, not to be part of that.
I heard about that.
Yeah, I heard about that. Um, and, uh, it's not too late. You can come back in. Um, but it's not the European Union obviously to the same degree, but it, it, it's, it's you would recognize it as a rules-based multi-pluralateral, uh, uh, trade deal that has labor standards, has sustainability. There is open discussion, we're part of it. I don't want to overplay it because it's still early days, but of a bridge between the EU and the NCPTP. Well, Canada's in both effectively. Uh, we're deepening with Europe. We're deepening with some of those players there. Then we're in a pretty big system that is rules-based. We would like to think that we will get to a position with the US where we have new rules as part of USMCA, uh, or a, a reaffirmation of these are the rules of conduct, uh, in USMCA. Uh, and, you know, we're re-engaging with China and other, uh, major economies in terms of developing, uh, developing the rules bilaterally with them. So there's more to play for it than there appears.
And, you know, one of the things that now, now I'm going to be a central banker, but this is important. Okay, this is really exciting. This is a chance. Check your phones. Um, when, um, but so much of economics is on the margin, right? So yes, we're heavily weighted to the United States and a big adjustment is going on in big sectors, steel, uh, autos, uh, as examples are force products because of the trade shock and we're hoping to make progress in all of those. But on the margin, when you grow into very large markets, which are represented by the EU and CPTP, it makes a big difference. Um, so it's the delta, it's the growth that's that's going to impact it.