Last week, G20 trade ministers gathered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the midst of a global reassessment of who trades with whom, and on what terms. Representatives from all over the world walked the floor of a Rockwell Automation plant and met with the workers and executives whose livelihoods depend on what trade policy gets right, and what it gets wrong. In that way, it is a fitting setting given the stakes for those affected.

The test in Milwaukee should not be held up as: every G20 member must agree on everything. They must simply agree on the problem and build a broadly shared answer to it. Canada has a clear contribution to make. We are deeply integrated with the United States, increasingly connected well beyond it, and we have helped the G20 find common ground before.

The G20 brings together the economies that write the rules and architecture of global commerce, representing roughly 85 per cent of world output and three-quarters of world trade. Leaders, finance ministers, central bank governors and trade ministers all coordinate there in a way no other forum allows.

For a country whose trade is worth about two-thirds of its economy, what is agreed in that room, or left unresolved, shows up quickly for businesses in Canadian order books, input costs and paycheques. The issues on last week’s agenda, from industrial overcapacity to the future of most-favoured-nation treatment to forced labour in supply chains, are already reshaping the conditions Canadian exporters will face for years to come. 

Optimistically, last week’s steel agreement on global overcapacity in Milwaukee shows how much common ground exists. Canada’s producers understand the cost of distorted global markets as well as anyone, and it is a challenge allies are best placed to solve together. The strongest response would in fact be a strengthened North American production base, too efficient and trusted to be undercut. We know Canadian energy and critical minerals power American industry, auto parts cross our border several times before a vehicle is finished, and Canada is the top export market for roughly half of American states. Tariffs between close partners do not address overcapacity elsewhere. They raise costs on both sides of the border, including for the very factories, and the workers, these leaders are touring. 

Diversifying trade is not a hedge against the United States. A Canada with wider markets is a more resilient partner, and one with trade agreements spanning the Atlantic and the Pacific. When the G20 needs broad support for common rules, that reach makes Canada a natural bridge. 

Canada has played that bridging role from the start. The G20 was created in 1999 to bring emerging economies into the conversation alongside the G7, and a Liberal finance minister, Paul Martin, chaired its first meeting of finance ministers. A Conservative one, Jim Flaherty, made the forum matter when the world needed it most. As the global financial system came close to failing in 2008, Flaherty pressed his counterparts to act together through the G20, with a consistent message to fix the banks and keep budgets credible. When he died in 2014, G20 finance ministers meeting in Washington credited his leadership with helping shape the recovery. Canada’s influence stems from relationships and from turning commitments into action, not throwing around our size or leverage points. 

Canadian business has helped uphold that reputation and reliability. Governments negotiate the rules, but businesses are the supply chains that operate under them. That is why Canada helped launch the G20’s business track, the B20, at the Toronto summit in 2010. This year, Canadian companies have worked alongside G20 counterparts on how to answer distorted markets without fracturing the networks that serve them. The priorities are familiar to anyone who has spent time in these negotiations. Governments should be open about how they support their industries and how much those industries produce. Rules should be predictable enough to invest in with confidence. Ultimately, critical inputs should come from sources resilient enough to withstand the next disruption. 

That record has outlasted every change of government in Ottawa, because it rests on two things all parties have long supported, credibility at home and cooperation abroad. This November, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce will be back at the B20 USA Summit in Washington, the same city where G20 leaders first met in 2008, pushing these foundational principles. 

Milwaukee is a test for everyone at the table. Canada’s answer should be to treat allies as part of the solution, not part of the problem. We can again help turn agreements into action. That is how the G20 passed its test in 2008. It is how it can pass this one. 

Monika LeRoy is the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s senior director of international policy and global partnerships.

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