WASHINGTON—Canada’s Conservative opposition is united with its Liberal government in support of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer said in Washington on Wednesday.“We’re here to support our government’s efforts,” Scheer said during an appearance at the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center think tank in the U.S. capital.“On NAFTA, the Canadian Parliament — certainly from the perspective of the government and opposition — is united.”Scheer’s appearance was attended by about a half-dozen officials from the U.S. government, including the White House and Commerce Department, as well as representatives from business groups and law firms. It came the week before the start of a critical round of renegotiation talks in Montreal.Scheer was making his first foreign trip as Conservative leader. He declined invitations to repeat his domestic criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the NAFTA file or to offer suggestions for the negotiations, saying that was not the place of an opposition leader abroad.Instead, Scheer and his delegation of Conservative MPs urged President Donald Trump’s administration to preserve the agreement.“NAFTA’s the wrong target” for Americans worried about economic competitiveness, said Scheer, who suggested they look at issues such as taxation, regulation and technological change.As Trudeau’s government did, Scheer criticized Trump’s administration for taking what Scheer called an unhelpfully “adversarial” approach to the negotiations, saying it would be better to “get rid” of the attitude that the U.S. can only win if Canada loses.His MPs said that the Canadian automotive and agricultural industries have benefited from NAFTA.Oshawa MP Colin Carrie said NAFTA is imperfect — his community, as have some in the U.S. heartland, has lost thousands of auto-manufactur ...
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