Former U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says Ottawa's negotiating team should move quickly this summer to strike a deal, as Mexican politicians are trying to do.J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press
Former Republican House leader Paul Ryan agrees with Canadian politicians like Doug Ford who are pushing the concept of building “Fortress North America” as a way to win U.S. President Donald Trump’s support for a new continental trade agreement.
But Mr. Ryan, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, parts ways with Ontario’s Premier over direct attacks on Mr. Trump, such as television ads featuring former U.S. president Ronald Reagan sounding off against tariffs.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump is expected to formally announce renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement he signed in 2018. Mr. Ryan, House speaker when the last pact was struck, says while there will be ups and downs in negotiations, the Trump administration wants to keep North American economies aligned as the U.S. competes with China.
“There’s light at the end of the trade tunnel, there’s enormous benefit to the U.S. in keeping a Fortress North America mindset,” said Mr. Ryan in an interview last week in Calgary, where he met with business leaders as vice-chairman of consulting firm Teneo.
“What you don’t want to do is deliberately antagonize the president, which the Reagan TV ads did” and former prime minister Justin Trudeau also achieved, said Mr. Ryan. He said Prime Minister Mark Carney seems to have found the proper tone for dealing with the mercurial president.
The former congressman lives in Wisconsin, a border state, and joked he has canoed into Canada more often than he has driven over the border.
Mr. Ryan frequently butted heads with Mr. Trump during the President’s first term before leaving politics in 2019.
Mr. Ryan, who describes himself as a “Ronald Reagan, free trade Republican,” frequently criticized Mr. Trump’s trade policies. In response, Mr. Trump took to social media to call him a “loser” and the “weakest & most incompetent Speaker of the House in its History.”
Carney signals no USMCA extension expected on Wednesday
In negotiations with the U.S., Mr. Ryan suggested Canada make it clear that it sees China as a strategic threat and will team up with the Americans on technology and defence issues.
“Selling grain or oil or other commodities to China is fine. Buying their technology is not,” Mr. Ryan said.
Canada’s negotiating team should move quickly this summer to strike a deal, as Mexican politicians are trying to do, said Mr. Ryan.
“One mistake would be for Canada or Mexico to believe they can rag the puck and somehow cut a better deal after the midterm elections.” He said stringing out talks risks angering the Trump administration.
Under U.S. law, the White House controls trade negotiations. Mr. Ryan said the parties controlling the House or Senate – both of which hold elections in November – are largely irrelevant to renewing the trilateral pact.
Canada’s negotiating team, led by Mr. Carney, Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and U.S. Ambassador Mark Wiseman, have forged a cordial working relationship with their U.S. counterparts, according to Mr. Ryan. He said that is a marked contrast to the antagonism underlying previous negotiations, when Mr. Trump openly disliked Mr. Trudeau and former foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland.
“The previous administration, under Trudeau, spent too much time lecturing the U.S. on values,” said Mr. Ryan. In the run-up to the 2018 agreement, he said Canadian negotiators lost credibility with Trump’s team and had minimal input in the final stage of talks.
“The U.S. ended up cutting a deal with Mexico and then saying to Canada, here it is, take it or leave it,” Mr. Ryan said.
Mr. Ryan served as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015, when Barack Obama was president, until 2019, when he stepped down during President Donald Trump’s first term. In 2012, he as served as former governor Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential nominee in an unsuccessful campaign against Mr. Obama.