Starmer and Carney look to cut UK-Canada trade barriers

OTTAWA — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, will speak about slashing trade barriers between their two countries Sunday.

Starmer told journalists en route to Canada for the G7 that he wants to “increase our trade with Canada and I will be discussing how we do so with Mark Carney.”

The pair will meet in Ottawa for a full bilateral meeting on Sunday morning following a private dinner Saturday night.

Starmer said “the world is changing on trade and the economy” and that this means Britain needs to cut “trade barriers with other countries.”

“I’ve been expressing that in my discussions with Mark Carney and he is in the same position,” he said. 

The comments will fuel speculation that Starmer and Carney will restart the U.K.-Canada trade talks that broke down in January 2024 over beef and cheese tariffs under former British Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau. 

This led to increased Canadian tariffs on British agricultural goods after the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit rollover deal expired.

Canada’s High Commissioner to London Ralph Goodale recently told POLITICO that Britain “has a series of unscientific nontariff trade barriers in place,” pointing to British food standards on meat imports, especially hormone-fed beef.

Goodale also blamed Brexit for the trade tension.

“We had a special quota in place for U.K. cheese going into Canada, which the U.K. used very, very successfully — and then the U.K. left Europe.”

“Canada didn’t Brexit, the U.K. Brexited, and when you left Europe, you left your cheese quota in Brussels. Now if you’ve got a problem with the cheese quota, go to Brussels and get it because you left it there.”