Okay. All right. So, I just looked there and...
Sorry, you can see we're very organized this morning.
Um, okay. Uh, probably most efficient, uh, just to go, uh, straight to questions, uh, given the timing and everything. So, uh, who's, uh, who is okay?
The president Trump. Is it the Americans? He refused to conquer. It's too large amount. Washington. The mayor moment for... It's just French and English.
Uh, that guy. Uh, j'ai eu plusieurs conversations avec le président Trump ici. Et, uh, j'ai après, avant, pardon. Et probablement sept ou huit conversations avec lui, uh, sur plusieurs sujets: Ukraine, uh, nos relations commerciales, l'économie mondiale, l'IA, uh, son anniversaire, c'est tout cela. Uh, alors, uh, il y a, oui, il y a beaucoup d'occasions de, de parler avec lui. Uh, il y avait une réunion, comme vous le savez, uh, entre monsieur, uh, Leblanc, monsieur Greer ainsi que, et madame, uh, Charest, une, une réunion plus technique, uh, pour des négociations commerciales. Alors il y a des occasions, il y a pas beaucoup de bilatérales, je crois, pour monsieur Trump. Uh, à cette réunion, il y a une bilatérale avec, uh, le président Macron, et je crois une bilatérale, monsieur Trump m'a dit une bilatérale avec, uh...
I wouldn't take a big message from that. I had seven or eight discussions with President Trump over the course of the last 36 hours. I'll have more today. Wide range of subjects from the economy, relations, his birthday, artificial intelligence, Ukraine, obviously Iran, the aspects of the deal and the next steps there and how Canada can help. So, and good discussions with the president. So I wouldn't take a big message from it.
Look, there's not, there's, there's, there's no message to that. He had two bilaterals, one with Mr. Macron. You always have a bilateral with the host, and I believe he had a bilateral with, uh, uh, Mr. Modi. And his motive, you know, I've, I've talked with Mr. Trump over the years, and his motive being is, is consistent with, with the interactions I had with him. We had the, uh, we had, uh, the direct discussions between the principals on the trade side. Mr. LeBlanc, Mr. Greer.
I spoke, we, I just answered, I spoke, spoke to him about a range of things. He had asked, I can't remember, I can't remember the, he had asked me about it, um, uh, on China, and I explained to him what the, what the deal, I mean it was a, one of many interactions with him, and I was explaining the actual structure of the deal. You're familiar with... Uh, I'm not surprised if the President of the United States doesn't follow every detail of every agreement, uh, that Canada has, and, uh, and he likes, uh, the structure actually. Uh, we had a follow-up conversation about it as well.
Uh, we had the discussions with the, with our trade people. We had lots of other issues to, uh, discuss.
Um, I, I, I would say the following. I, the, just so we're all on the same page. Um, we went back to where in 2024, uh, before we effectively, uh, the government took steps that effectively shut the Canadian market for Chinese vehicles. Chinese, uh, auto makers were exporting to Canada paying an MFN tariff. It's about just under 7%, uh, so the lowest tariff rate, most favored nation tariff rate. They were exporting 49,000 cars. They were all Teslas, basically, Teslas made in China. Uh, uh, what we agreed with China earlier this year was in effect, as I explained to the president, a hard cap. In other words, a very high punitive tariff above that 49,000 level. The MFN tariff below, but an additional, uh, requirement that half of that quota, that 49,000 built up over a few years, would be for vehicles $35,000 or less. Uh, so we'd get wider variety, wider choice for Canadians, but I'd remind, and you know this, uh, that this is less than 3% of the Canadian car market. So, it's quite, you know, uh, a marginal, uh, marginal amount, but it gets some Chinese vehicles back in, more choice, and it creates the possibility, possibility, not the certainty in any ways, uh, that there is commercial, you know, this commercial relationship develops and there's Chinese investment in Canada. We are only interested in Chinese investment in Canada when it's material Canadian production. We're not interested in kits being put together in Canada. Uh, we're interested if there are joint venture partnerships, uh, Canadian, uh, Canadian controlled, substantial value add, Canadian labor standards, substantial jobs, etc. that are consistent with that. Those are longer tail discussions. Those would be some of the discussions Minister, uh, Joly is having. Uh, you see some of this in, uh, as you say, you see some of this happening in Europe, you see some of this happening, uh, in, uh, I, I'll double check this with the president of Brazil, but I believe actually in Brazil you're seeing some of this as well. Uh, so it's a natural evolution of, uh, of their business model. What we would do though is, uh, we will only do what's in the interest of Canadian consumers, Canadian workers.
Uh, yes to your second, uh, part of your question. Uh, in the first part of it, let me, let me give the context to that, uh, which is taking the lessons, and one of the points that I made in the, in the room, uh, in our discussions around Iran and, and geopolitics was we have to apply the lessons of recent events. And one of the lessons, not deep insight, but it's important that we actually apply it, is diversification. Choke point at Strait of Hormuz, we've all seen the impact, uh, including on Canadians with higher gas prices, but, uh, more, more globally. So, there's diversification within that region, new pipeline and other infrastructure, so not all energy is coming out through the strait. There is some of that, but there's not enough of that, so there's intention to build out a series of, uh, of, of energy infrastructure there. Canada has the ability to do several things and we're on the path to do several things. 150 megatons of, uh, LNG by the end of the year. Uh, short answer on that, you're already seen with the German, uh, off-takes, uh, for, uh, for example, the Sidewinder's, uh, project. Uh, we have two German off-takes, there's other European off-takes in the work, uh, for Canadian LNG. And then as well, uh, expansion of TMX, the oil pipeline, which is, uh, uh, a project that will go ahead. Uh, the discussions with Alberta on the implementation agreement and potential new pipeline, oil pipeline to the west coast. Uh, South Bow, which is a pipeline into the US. Uh, so, when you total those up, it's a material amount of additional energy that Canada can provide both in natural gas, and this is just from western Canada. I shouldn't say just, but it's particularly from western Canada. Obviously, there's other alternatives in the east. So, uh, it's quite substantial and it's important to, uh, our European partners, it's important to our Asian partners. It was raised with me on a number of bilaterals as well.
Well, actually it was, I think, uh, I believe Prime Minister Modi said that he looked forward to coming once the trade deal is done. I think he said that in the, in the media scrum. Certainly that is our collective understanding that we want to have the deal done and, and, and move from that platform forward for his visit to Canada. So, we're working hard. What we had said, and I'll, I'll finish here, what, what we had said at the outset of the negotiations at the G7 last year is that we were going to launch these negotiations and our intention would be to complete them by the G20 this year, which is in November. So, that gives you a sense of timing. Uh, I, I think you might have rounded up to say it's 99% done, but we're making substantial progress and we had a good discussion on some of the issues the Prime Minister and I when we met. So, very constructive and it's moving forward and it's, and it's important. It's an important opportunity for Canada. I would, I would underscore, just make one point just to put this in, in context. Canadian businesses, Canadian pension funds and others, we have a $100 billion of investment already in India. So, this is one of, we are one of the largest foreign investors in India. We have one of the largest trade relationships, or potential trade relationships, better way to put it, having the foreign investment protection agreement, FIPA, and then having this trade deal really will open up a new level of activity there. Thank you.
C'était soulevé par le Canada à cause de l'accord avec l'Iran. Il y avait une discussion, comme j'ai dit, plus détaillée sur le Liban. Ça, c'est un game changer.
In English, only, I was sorry. What, what the exchange was that it creates a possibility of game changer. I referenced the discussions we had on Ukraine, on Lebanon, and the change in tone with respect to Ukraine, the change in orientation, a more realistic, in our view, expectation of where this war was going to go and the position against Russia, the tightening of sanctions against Russia, the ability to provide additional defensive support for Ukraine, which was discussed in some detail, also very detailed discussion about Lebanon and next steps with that, the linkage of course here. Yes, there are risks. Yes, the accord has to be put into place, but the very fact of it and the fact that so many countries were involved in its development and are vested in its development does create knock-on effects, positive knock-on effects. And that's, that's what I believe, and of course Canada will do what we can to support the realization of this.
There is a variety of things that we can do. I guess the couple things. One, there are frozen assets. The, I think it's for the principals of the deal to speak to the details of, of the money. To be clear, there's no Canadian money going in that. What you need in any of these accords is you need people to help implement them, third parties to help implement them, moderators, overseeing. If you have money that's linked to, which is the case with this deal, which has conditions and linked to the fulfillment of those conditions and being managed. Sometimes you have third countries do that. Canada is of course willing to help if that's appropriate.
I, I would say the following. One, yes, I've read it, and yes, actually, I, I spoke to the Pope about it. I also read and helped write the AI strategy. So I'm familiar with both documents, as you would expect. Certainly on the AI strategy, I would, I would bring the following where it comes together and arriving at a similar position from, you know, a very different roles, which is AI, particularly AI, but this is true for any tech, should be true for any technology, is that the deployment of AI has to have people at the center. So having people at the center in this case means the following. One, all Canadians having the opportunity to learn how to use AI, to have the tools, literally the access to the AI tools. So it, it is AI for all. It's as equal as possible. That's, that's what one of the things that makes Canada great is that we always strive for equality where we can. So that's first and foremost, and there's a series of things in the AI strategy that look to accomplish that. We have more work to do. It'll be some of the discussions I have on the sidelines here and follow up with some of the AI companies. So that's the first element of having people at the center, and then the second is to what purpose? What's the point of the deployment of AI? Medical solutions, helping as opposed to harvesting, cultural discovery as, as another example. So there's a series of ways that we can deploy it. Making government work for people better would be a third obvious, and, and so core to the strategy is a series of missions. We'll start on health care in terms of delivery. So, that's where those two come together. Thank you, Katie.
I wish him a happy birthday. He's very pleased. I did get him a present. He likes it a lot.
