Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand are in Mexico to meet with President Claudia Sheinbaum as the Canadian government looks to boost economic ties with its ally amid a trade war with the United States.
Champagne’s office said the two senior cabinet ministers are meeting with Sheinbaum on Tuesday. Champagne is also meeting with stakeholders that have a Canadian presence in Mexico, including in the aerospace, energy and banking sectors.
“The meetings will be constructive in that respect — looking at markets, looking at diversification, looking at strengthening our partnership with our Mexican colleagues,” Champagne told Radio-Canada in Trois-Rivières, Que., on Monday afternoon.
Senior Canadian government sources told CBC News the goal of the two-day visit is to advance Canada’s bilateral relationship with Mexico and strengthen trade ties.
The news of the trip was first reported Sunday evening by the Globe and Mail.
Champagne said the visit “is all complementary to what we’ve been saying — that we need to engage with strategic partners around the world. And if you look at the [Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement] as a trading bloc, that’s the second largest trading bloc in the world.”
“So it is important for us to engage with our Mexican friends,” the finance minister added.
One source told CBC that the trip “is all about relationship building,” and the two ministers’ meeting with Sheinbaum will lay the groundwork for a future bilateral meeting between the Mexican president and Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Carney and Sheinbaum have spoken at least four times since the prime minister came into office.
In June, the two met at the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Alberta. A news release posted on Carney’s website said he and Sheinbaum agreed to “deepen bilateral collaboration at the ministerial level” and they “looked forward to meeting again in Mexico in the coming months.”
Arturo Sarukhan, former ambassador of Mexico to the United States, told CBC News he thinks “it’s high time that that co-ordination between the Mexican and Canadian governments kicks off in earnest.”
“There’s really been very little engagement in terms of how we can both engage together vis-a-vis a common trade partner that is eviscerating all the rules of trade that have built this incredible success story of North American trade over the past three decades,” Sarukhan said.
Trump extends tariff deal with Mexico
The Canadians’ visit comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he had agreed with Sheinbaum to extend an existing trade deal with Mexico for 90 days and continue talks over the period with a goal of signing a new deal.
“Mexico will continue to pay a 25% Fentanyl Tariff, 25% Tariff on Cars, and 50% Tariff on Steel, Aluminum and Copper,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “Additionally, Mexico has agreed to immediately terminate its Non Tariff Trade Barriers, of which there were many.”
Canada did not get an extension. Trump signed an executive order raising tariffs on Canadian goods that are not compliant with CUSMA to 35 per cent.
The carve-out for CUSMA-compliant goods means very few Canadian products will actually be subjected to the elevated tariff.
The U.S. president criticized Canada’s “lack of co-operation” in curbing the flow of fentanyl southward and for retaliating against his existing tariffs.
With trade negotiations with the U.S. seemingly at a standstill, a delegation of Canadian ministers has headed to Mexico to establish a more direct trade relationship.
Sarukhan said Sheinbaum has “avoided grandstanding from the presidential bully pulpit, engaging in the back and forth that Trump loves,” but Mexico has also bent its knee to Trump. American officials have called out Canada and China as the only countries to retaliate against Trump’s tariffs.
On Sunday, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he expects Carney and Trump will have a conversation with each other “over the next couple of days.”
LeBlanc left Washington earlier this week without a trade deal, but told host Margaret Brennan, host of CBS’s Face The Nation, that he came out of discussions “with a better understanding of the American concerns in the trading relationship.
“So we’re prepared to stick around and do the work needed,” LeBlanc added.
