WHY DO WE NEED TO NEGOTIATE WHEN WE'VE WON EVERY RULING

ik to the American Trade Representative: "You're Insane!!"

U.S. Trade Ambassador says Canada misunderstood Washington

CBC News

The U.S. Trade Representative said he believes Canada misunderstood the American position on the most recent ruling regarding the NAFTA cross-border softwood dispute.

US Trade Representative Rob Portman says it is time for Canada to negotiate on softwood lumber.

Ambassador Rob Portman told CBC News in Washington Friday that the recent ruling on NAFTA -- a ruling that favoured Canada's position -- was irrelevant because it was based on a decision that had been superseded.

Portman says the Canadian government should have understood that the U.S. would take that position, as he felt the U.S. view had been commmunicated to Ottawa.

Portman was made U.S. Trade Ambassador in May: "We've now spent over 20 years now litigating, and in my confirmation hearings I talked about the fact that this has been litigated to death. And it's probably time for us to sit down and in a serious way and determine how we can resolve our differences in a way that's long-lasting that can provide some predictability and certainty to the industry on both sides of the border.

Portman said in July he felt both sides were close to having a constructive dialogue: "The U.S. submitted a proposal that actually went toward the Canadian point of view, we waited for a counter offer, we did not get one because the Canadian officials indicated they needed to go back to Canada and look at the issue from the perspective of the provinces as well as the industry and we're still waiting for the counter offer."

The former Ohio State representative in Congress said Canada benefits tremendously from NAFTA: "In fact the Canadian trade surplus with the U.S. is over 100 billion dollars a year.
He said: "Our differences relate to subsidies, they relate to the fact that we have different systems in terms of our timber management in the United States and in Canada...But my sense is that it's a fairly simple distinction -- on the Canadian side there's more of a government controlled system and a government price-controlled system -- and on the U.S. side it's more of a free-market system."

The U.S. Trade Ambassador said Canada will have to move to more of a market-based system: "What we need to get at is how to, in my view, come up with a more market based system where we can see compromise on both sides and resolve this dispute."