Oh Canada! Finance minister not fussed about UK trade deal
Canada will be in no rush to strike up a trade deal with the UK following Brexit, a key minister has said today.
As the UK moves closer to leaving the EU, many have been eager to know what kind of trade relations the country will be able to secure.
But Canada's finance minister Bill Morneau has revealed the rest of the world is just not as into Brexit as the UK, adding that, although the two countries would likely strike up a deal eventually, Canada's main focus was currently the EU, China and the US.
"We're not talking as much about Brexit as you are in the UK," Morneau said in an interview with the Financial Times.
Read more: The Brexit vote has wiped £26,000 off your wealth
Turning his thoughts to the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), Morneau said this relationship was of "huge importance", although his country was yet to strike up a conversation with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss such matters.
Trump has made it clear he's not keen on trade deals. In the late hours of last night, Trump vowed to pull the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal on his first day in office.
Meanwhile, the trade reform section on Trump's website claims "too many American jobs have been lost over the last decade because of trade deals that do not put Americans first", and the President-elect goes on to pledge he and his team "will reverse decades of policies that have pushed jobs out of our country".
Read more: Brexit: 60 Tory MPs call on May to pull UK out of the Single Market
Morneau said: "Our view is that Nafta has had enormous advantages for the US, for Canada and for Mexico. We also recognise that the anxieties that fuelled the decision in the US are real. They’re also real in Canada."