March 18, 1985
Declaration by the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the United States of America Regarding Trade in Goods and Services
We embark today on a joint effort to establish a climate of greater predictability and confidence for Canadians and Americans alike to plan, invest, grow and compete more effectively with one another and in the global market.
We are convinced that an improved and more secure climate for bilateral trade relations will encourage market forces to achieve a more rational and competitive production and distribution of goods and services.
We remain committed to the principles of the multilateral trading system embodied in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as the cornerstone of our respective trade policies. We are determined to exercise the political will to make the open, multilateral trading system work better and to strengthen and extend the disciplines governing international commerce.
We will work jointly to strengthen the effectiveness of GATT rules and establish new disciplines. We call on all nations to join with us in establishing a preparatory committee this summer for a new round of multilateral trade negotiations to ensure that negotiations commence in early 1986.
We believe that the challenge to our two countries is to invigorate our unique economic relationship. We intend to build on our success in resolving a number of disputes and achieve something of lasting significance to provide a model to other nations of the way in which two modern societies can work in harmony.
We have today agreed to give the highest priority to finding mutually-acceptable means to reduce and eliminate existing barriers to trade in order to secure and facilitate trade and investment flows.
As a first step, we commit ourselves to halt protectionism in cross-border trade in goods and services.
We have charged Ambassador Brock, the United States Trade Representative, and the Honorable James Kelleher, Minister for International Trade, to establish immediately a bilateral mechanism to chart all possible ways to reduce and eliminate existing barriers to trade and to report to us within six months.
We have also directed that action be undertaken over the next twelve months to resolve specific impediments to trade in a manner consistent with our international obligations and our legislative requirements. Such action will proceed on the basis of full consultation with the private sector and other levels of government and will concentrate initially on:
- national treatment, on a contractual, equitable and mutually advantageous basis, with respect to government procurement and funding programs;
- standardization, reduction or simplification of regulatory requirements which would facilitate trade in goods and services;
- improvement in the Canada-United States Air Transport Agreement aimed at facilitating transborder travel and commerce by expanding the number of available services and reducing obstacles to the introduction of innovative and competitive new services;
- strengthening our market approach to Canada-United States energy trade by reducing restrictions, particularly those on petroleum imports and exports, and by maintaining and extending open access to each other's energy markets, including oil, natural gas, electricity and coal;
- improving access for traders on both sides of the border through reduction in tariff barriers;
- facilitation of travel for business and commercial purposes;
- elimination or reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade in high-technology goods and related services, such as computers, data flow and computer-assisted design and manufacturing technology; and
- cooperation to protect intellectual property rights from trade in counterfeit goods and other abuses of copyright and patent law.
We urge our respective private sectors to expand their contacts and continue to provide advice on the future of our trading relationship.
We are confident that these undertakings will facilitate trade and investment flows between our two countries and act as catalysts for broader international cooperation.
Declaration by the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the United States of America Regarding International Security
We are neighbours and allies dedicated to the defence and nourishment of peace and freedom. The security of Canada and the United States are inextricably linked.
We have committed ourselves at Quebec to reinvigorate the defence and security partnership between the two countries. To reinforce deterrence and to reduce the risk posed by threat of nuclear attack, we agreed to strengthen continental defence, with particular reference to our joint participation in the North American Aerospace Defence Command. Accordingly, we concluded an agreement to modernize the North American Air Defence Surveillance and Warning System. We agreed that in implementing this program, as in all of our defence relations, we shall be guided by the principle of mutual respect for the sovereignty of our two countries.
In the spirit of mutual trust and confidence between our countries, we have committed ourselves to consult fully, frankly, and regularly on defence and arms control matters.
To permit systematic consultation and overall review, at the most senior levels, of arrangements bearing on the security of Canada and the United States, we resolved that the responsible ministers of our governments will meet together on a regular basis. We have also agreed to make greater use of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, established at the historic meeting of Prime Minister Mackenzie King and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Ogdensburg forty-five years ago.
To provide for an effective use of resources and to aid both of our countries in bearing our share of the Allied defence burden, we reaffirm the Canada/United States Defence Development and Production Sharing Arrangements and agree to strengthen our North American defence industrial base. Recognizing the importance of access to, and participation of, Canadian firms in the U.S. defence market, we will work to reduce barriers, and to stimulate the flow in defence goods. We will seek to improve our joint access to information relating to defence procurement; we will explore ways to establish a separate designation for mobilization base suppliers for U.S. and Canadian firms, and we will seek to take greater advantage of flexibility inherent in second source suppliers. We will also undertake to establish a freer exchange between both countries of technical knowledge and skills involved in defence production, in order to facilitate defence economic and trade cooperation and joint participation in major defence programs. In this connection, we agree to strengthen our cooperation to ensure that transfers of strategic technology to our potential adversaries are effectively controlled. We have directed the responsible Ministers to give priority attention to all these issues and to provide a progress report within four months.
The security of Canada and the United States is inseparable from that of the European members of the North Atlantic Alliance. We remain fully dedicated to preserving the security of the Alliance as a whole through the maintenance of adequate military strength, an effective deterrent posture, and a stable balance of forces. We attach great importance to our continuing commitment to station Canadian and United States forces in Europe. We think it is essential to strengthen NATO's conventional capabilities and accordingly reiterate our determination to continue substantial real growth in expenditures for defence.
We share a commitment to deepening the dialogue among the Allies. Our Alliance draws strength from the unique and individual contributions of its sovereign members in the pursuit of our common goal of peace with freedom. The cohesion and political solidarity of the Alliance, maintained through frequent and timely consultations, remain the foundation for the protection of our common interests and values.
Significant, equitable, durable and verifiable arms control measures can play a role in strengthening strategic stability, maintaining our security at a lower level of force and armament, building trust and confidence between East and West, and reducing the risk of war. We have agreed to consider joint research efforts to strengthen our capacity to verify agreements on the control of armaments. We will work to gain agreement on effective measures in the international negotiations in Vienna, Geneva, and Stockholm, and we will strive, with the countries of Europe, to progress towards the aims enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act.
We further agreed that we can have no higher goal than the reduction and eventual elimination of the threat to peace, whether by nuclear or conventional means. Our aim is not to achieve superiority, but to enhance deterrence of armed aggression and bring about significant arms reductions between East and West. We seek a more stable world, with greatly reduced levels of nuclear arms. The prospect of an enhanced ability to deter war based upon an increasing contribution of non-nuclear defences against offensive nuclear arms has prompted the U.S. research effort embodied in the President's strategic defence initiative. We are agreed that this effort is prudent and is in conformity with the ABM Treaty. In this regard, we agree that steps beyond research would, in view of the ABM treaty, be matters for discussion and negotiation.
Dialogue and negotiation between the United States and the Soviet Union at Geneva provide a historic opportunity to set East-West relations on a more secure foundation. We hope that these negotiations will lead to major steps toward the prevention of an arms race in space and to terminating it on earth, limiting and reducing nuclear arms, and, ultimately, eliminating them everywhere.
The security of Canada and the United States is linked increasingly with that of other regions in the world. We will therefore encourage and support the strengthening of multilateral and international mechanisms for the control and peaceful resolution of disputes. We will vigorously oppose the exploitation of regional instability, and promote at the same time, each by our distinctive contributions, the social, economic, and political development essential to the achievement of a stable and enduring peace.
Our one truly strategic aim is human freedom in a world at peace.