Danielle Smith ‘1,000 per cent’ in favour of ousting Mexico from trilateral trade deal with U.S. and Canada

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she agrees it could be time to cut Mexico out of the trilateral free trade agreement with Canada and the United States.

“Mexico has gone in a different direction, and it’s pretty clear that the Americans have indicated that they want to have a fair trade relationship,” Smith told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in an interview airing Sunday. “Mexico is not in a position to be able to offer that, especially with the investment that they have from China.”

“We’ve got to put Canada first,” she added.

The trilateral deal was first inked in 1994, at the time called NAFTA, before being renegotiated during former president and now-president-elect Donald Trump’s first term.

Trump in this last election campaign vowed to reopen the agreement when it comes up for review in 2026.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, meanwhile, floated the idea earlier this week of ousting Mexico from the trilateral deal in favour of a bilateral one between just Canada and the U.S., a proposal of which Smith said she is “a thousand per cent” in support.

The majority of what Alberta sends to the U.S. is energy exports. According to Smith, Alberta has a $188-billion trade relationship with the United States, compared to the $2.9-billion trade relationship with Mexico.

“It’s important, but our absolute number one priority is maintaining those strong trade ties with (the) United States, and if that requires us to do a bilateral agreement, then that’s what we should do,” she said.

On Tuesday, Ford accused Mexico of being a “back door” for China to get its products, namely vehicles, into North America, “undercutting” Canadian and American workers.

When asked about Ford’s comments earlier this week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Just about all of our partner democracies around the world have expressed varying degrees of concern about Chinese overcapacity.”

While he said the “desire to protect good jobs” that are in line with responsible environmental and labour protections will be “a big topic of conversation” with the new Trump administration, Trudeau wouldn’t explicitly say whether he’d consider forcing Mexico out of a future free trade deal.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters on Wednesday that she’s heard concerns from both the outgoing Biden administration and people connected to the incoming Trump administration that “Mexico is not acting the way that Canada and the U.S. are when it comes to its economic relationship with China.”

“I think those are legitimate concerns for our American partners and neighbours to have,” Freeland said. “Those are concerns that I share.”

Derek Burney, who was former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s chief of staff when the original NAFTA was negotiated, said a Canadian push to exclude Mexico from the agreement would be “childish.”

Burney — who later served as the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. — told Kapelos, also in an interview airing Sunday, that Canada should focus on its own relationship with the U.S., instead of concerning itself with Mexico.

“I don’t think we need to be provocative,” he said. “I think the Mexicans are doing things that are going to give them enough difficulty with the Americans without our help.”

“So no, I wouldn’t recommend that we take that action,” he added.

Burney said the Canadian focus should be on areas of alignment and potential collaboration with the U.S., namely when it comes to energy, liquified natural gas and critical minerals.

“The Mexicans are going to have a boatload of problems to deal with, with the Americans,” Burney also said. “They don’t need our help, and they won’t seek our help, so let them deal with their own problems with the Americans.”

Burney in his interview also discussed the need for Canada to spend more on defence, and faster than it currently plans to, if it wants to be taken seriously on other issues when negotiating with the United States.

And Smith in her interview also discussed the federal government’s oil and gas sector emissions cap — a policy she’s vehemently opposed — and her efforts to work with the people Trump has announced he plans to bring into his administration.

You can watch the full interview with Danielle Smith on CTV Question Period airing Sunday at 11ET/8PT on CTV and CTV News Channel.