With the prospect of a blanket exemption from Buy American policies now looking unlikely, Canada is seeking a deal that would allow Canadian firms to take part in the Biden administration's green energy push, said Canada's chief trade negotiator.
"The prospects of us getting a complete exemption from the Buy America provisions is something that's not likely to be politically possible in the U.S.," Steve Verheul, chief trade negotiator, told a parliamentary committee today.
Verheul told MPs that Canada is looking for sector-specific exemptions in negotiations with the U.S. He said the most likely area where the two countries could work together is on green energy and other green initiatives.
"That's the major focus that we're looking at because that's, I think, where we can very easily align with the U.S., demonstrate that those markets, like many others, are very integrated and that we can produce a lot of those types of goods and services together," he said.
Canada has the advantage, Verheul added, of being a much more reliable supplier to the U.S. than other countries might be when it comes to green energy investments...
This was excerpted from the 2 March 2021 edition of CBC News.