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SALT LAKE CITY — Stephen Harper doesn't agree with everything Donald Trump proposed on foreign trade policy, but said the former U.S. president was right on one thing: Western nations need to rethink their approach to trade with China.
"I believe that the terms on which the United States and other western nations admitted China to the world trading system back in 2000 were absolutely terrible and allowed China to essentially set the terms of the trade between our countries in ways that have been predatory," he said Thursday at the Crossroads of the World International Trade Summit in Salt Lake City. "So, I really do think there's a problem there."
But Harper, who served as prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015, said the U.S. would be better served by relying more on Canada and Mexico as trade "allies" rather than "adversaries," and seeing the partnership as a "way to deal with the common adversary we actually face — which is China."
The summit, sponsored by Zions Bank and the World Trade Center Utah, convened former leaders from across North America, including Harper, former U.S. President George W. Bush and former Mexican President Vicente Fox. Harper and Fox spoke Thursday morning about the trade relationships between the three countries, and Bush addressed the summit in the afternoon, though his remarks were closed to the media.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox kicked off the summit by joking that he doubles as the state's "Chief Bragging Officer." Utah was recently ranked the No. 1 overall state by U.S. News & World Report and has repeatedly been awarded the state with the best economic outlook by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative policy group.
Cox said the Beehive State benefits economically from residents who are hard-working and intelligent. "Those are Utah values, and they used to be American values. Utah is what America used to be and, I hope, what it can be again," he said.
Is free trade still popular?
Given that President Joe Biden and Trump — both presumptive presidential nominees for the two major political party parties — have talked of increasing tariffs on countries like China, Harper was asked to advise businesses and governments about how to stay ahead of the changing economic tide.
While Harper said some "deglobalization" will be good for businesses, he doesn't expect a complete retrenchment when it comes to world trade. Instead, he said the era of "naive globalism" may be coming to an end, meaning nations and businesses will have to understand that there are real risks to a globalized economy.
Those risks include natural disasters, global conflict or geopolitical strife, all of which can threaten supply chains and revenue. But completely disengaging from the world economy is not the answer, he said.
"The wrong thing to draw from that is to pull everything back to your country or to your state," Harper said.
'We just have to tackle them'
Fox, who served as president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, said trade agreements such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement — which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2020 — don't just provide economically for the trading partners but are also important to foster democratic governance.
"We're getting the kinds of governments that nobody would like to have," he said of rising authoritarian regimes around the world.
He said parts of Latin America could be losing the "American dream," and expanding educational opportunities in the region could help reverse that trend.
Asked if Utah and Mexico can collaborate to achieve mutually beneficial economic outcomes, he said, the "opportunities are right there, we just have to tackle them."
