Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says his government would push for an urgent renegotiation of the Canada-United-States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), and all revenues collected from increased trade with the U.S. would fund expanding Canada’s military.

Poilievre also called for targeted retaliatory tariffs, narrowly aimed at American goods that Canadians can source elsewhere, though he didn’t provide a dollar amount or specific items. The Liberal government has imposed tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. products and threatened $95 billion more.

Poilievre and Liberal Leader Mark Carney are in a tight race ahead of the election on April 28. Carney has similarly called for swift talks on the North American trade deal, but has also pushed for Canada to diversify its trading partners, saying the close economic relationship with the U.S. is “over.”

The Tory leader unveiled his plan Wednesday to respond to Donald Trump’s trade war, hours before the U.S. president was to unveil broad “reciprocal tariffs” on nations around the world. Poilievre has lost his polling lead in recent weeks and has faced calls to pivot his campaign away from domestic affordability issues and toward the threat from the U.S.

He also promised to launch a “Keeping Canadians Working” fund — a targeted, temporary loan program for businesses that are directly hit by the trade dispute that would allow them to keep workers on the job. It would be similar to support deployed by Stephen Harper’s government during the great financial crisis, he said.

Poilievre said both the U.S. and Canada should agree to pause tariffs while the renegotiation of CUSMA is underway. Every dollar of revenue from a better trade deal would go toward expanding Canada’s military and increasing its presence in the Arctic, allowing the country to meet its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) obligation of spending two per cent of gross domestic product on defence, Poilievre said.

“For years, the Americans have demanded we do more in defence. The truth is Canadians have been demanding exactly the same thing,” he said. Canada spent about 1.4 per cent of GDP on defence last year, below most other NATO.

“We will take back control of our Arctic waters from the Chinese and the Russians,” Poilievre said. “We will rebuild our military and we’ll become a truly sovereign nation with a strong armed forces that can protect us. We will not do this to please President Trump. We will do it because it is right for Canada.”

He also argued that the next trade deal should have commitments on defence, border co-operation and market access that Canada can withdraw from if Trump decides to break the deal and impose tariffs again. “That is how we create the leverage to protect against a president suddenly changing his mind and breaking his word.”

Poilievre has also called for diversification of Canada’s trade, blaming a “lost Liberal decade” that failed to oversee the construction of more pipelines and other infrastructure to ship more natural resources abroad. He reiterated Wednesday that he would unleash business investment through tax cuts and reduced regulation.

Bloomberg.com