Rio Tinto confident US will treat Canada differently on trade

The head of Rio Tinto Group’s aluminium division is confident the Trump administration will recognize that Canada must be viewed differently when considering import tariffs on the metal and in Nafta talks. “There’s a clear recognition of the strategic importance of the Canadian industry to the American manufacturing base,” Alf Barrios, chief executive of Rio Tinto’s aluminium division, said Wednesday in a phone interview. That view was expressed to him in conversations within the last few weeks, he said. “It is different than the other importing countries.”