{"text":[[{"start":9.05,"text":"Doug Ford, the outspoken premier of Ontario who infuriated Donald Trump with anti-tariff adverts last year, urged the US president to “get a deal” done with Canada as he struck a diplomatic tone on a visit to Washington."}],[{"start":23.65,"text":"Canada has struggled to launch formal talks with the US as Washington works on negotiating changes to its 2020 US-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal with Ottawa and Mexico City, which is supposed to be completed by July 1, although few expect that deadline to be met."}],[{"start":41.2,"text":"“I think we just need to hammer out a deal as quickly as we possibly can,” Ford told the FT on a trip to Washington this week to lobby US businesses and lawmakers on a potential agreement. "}],[{"start":51.800000000000004,"text":"Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province, shot to international fame last year as the face of the Canadian resistance to Trump’s trade war and his threats to annex the country as the “51st state”. He pursued measures including an export levy on Canadian electricity to the US and banned American alcohol from his province’s liquor stores."}],[{"start":71.80000000000001,"text":"Trump threatened to increase tariffs on Canada by a further 10 per cent after Ontario launched an advertising campaign featuring former US president Ronald Reagan’s criticism of tariffs."}],[{"start":83.00000000000001,"text":"Ford briefly imposed a surcharge of 25 per cent on all electricity exports to the US last year, affecting an estimated 1.5mn homes and businesses in Michigan, Minnesota and New York, before suspending the measure. "}],[{"start":96.85000000000001,"text":"But on this week’s visit to Washington, Ford struck a more conciliatory tone and emphasised the importance of Ottawa and Washington reaching a trade agreement."}],[{"start":105.85000000000001,"text":"He said if he were to meet the president, he would tell him: “Let’s get a deal. Let’s get it done. He’s a business person. I’m a business person. You sort things out and you get them done because it will benefit the US and all benefit Canada.”"}],[{"start":119.10000000000001,"text":"When asked if he would be prepared to retaliate against the US again, Ford said: “We never started this fight, and my job as premier of Ontario is to protect Ontario, and when we protect Ontario we’re protecting Canadian jobs as well, right across the sectors.”"}],[{"start":135.3,"text":"But Ford said he would wait to see “how this deal works out”. “I want to deal more than anyone, but it has to be a fair deal.”"}],[{"start":143.20000000000002,"text":"His visit comes just one week after Trump repeated his jibe that Canada should become the 51st state of the US. Trump also reposted on his Truth Social platform a Bloomberg News report on Canada falling into a technical recession for the first time since 2020 after two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth."}],[{"start":163.3,"text":"Last week, Canada’s trade minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters that Ottawa had made new proposals to the US during a visit to Washington, playing down suggestions that Canadian progress in trade talks had fallen behind that of Mexico."}],[{"start":176.05,"text":"“The formal talks come with a joint news release and a joint social media post — I get that. But I also get that we have had substantive and detailed discussions over a number of weeks,” LeBlanc said."}],[{"start":195.50000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780988766_3862.mp3"}