REGINA — Premier Scott Moe is back in Saskatchewan after his latest meetings on tariffs in Washington, D.C., the past couple of days.
Moe met with government and elected officials during his latest meetings, including members of the Trump abinet. At a news conference at the Legislature Wednesday, Moe confirmed that among those he met with were U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
“It’s important, I think, for us as a province to support our federal government in carrying on those lines of communication with our largest trading partners around the world, and our largest trading partner is the United States of America,” Moe said.
Moe stressed the importance of continuing to have conversations with officials in the United States. He saw a role for Saskatchewan to try and help get trade negotiations back on track between the U.S.A. and Canada.
“We thought it would be prudent for us to rely on the relationships that we have with many of our U.S. counterparts, whether they be elected in the Senate or the Congress or whether they be part of the Trump administration more properly and part of his cabinet, to use the contacts that we have to go down and do what we can in supporting our federal government and the government of the United States of America to come back to that negotiating table.
“It’s important for us to keep the conversations and the lines of communication open with all countries that we trade to, and in particular, it’s important for us to keep the lines and do what we can as a province to keep those lines and communication open with the United States of America.”
He pointed to Saskatchewan having the “highest per capita export value of any state or province in North America.”
“We very much are reliant on our trade relations, and very much create our wealth from exporting product to over 160 countries around the world, the largest of those being the United States of America, China, and India. Our goal is always to get countries back to the negotiating table, in particular, get back to the negotiating table with our country, Canada.”
Moe said the federal government was aware of this latest trip, and he said he had spoken with Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade Dominic Leblanc and Prime Minister Mark Carney on Saturday.
As for how he measures progress from such a trip, Moe replied that “you don’t know until after you come back and, you know, let… some time pass and that ultimately is the judge.”
But Moe pointed to the situation a year ago when they went to India, which helped bring conversations between Canada and India back on track. He also pointed to a similar situation where talks with Mexico had fallen off, but now are back on.
Moe believes from the latest talks that there is a “realization that there is and needs to be a path forward, but there’s also a realization that in the short term there’s some challenging discussions on certain sectors that are going to happen and we would say that the best way to find our way through those challenging discussions is for everyone to be at the table which we currently are not.
“So that would be our urging through our dialogue the last number of days, is let’s find our way back to the table and let’s find our way forward so that we can replicate some of what we do see happening in what is a very challenging immediate environment.”
