Trump ups caustic Canada remarks
Dairy, lumber: Trump team signals broader renegotiation of NAFTA
U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprisingly caustic complaints about trade with Canada in recent days could be setting the stage for a broader renegotiation than previously signalled of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The administration is suddenly suggesting that irritants like dairy and softwood lumber could be on the table in the update to NAFTA, rather than just the minor tweaking the president spoke of a few weeks ago.
On Tuesday Trump said Canada has “outsmarted” the U.S. for a long time but his administration is “not going to put up with it.”
Trump has been railing against Canada’s decision to change its policy on pricing domestic milk to cover more dairy ingredients, leading to lower prices for products, including ultra-filtered milk.
His administration moved Monday to impose a 20 per cent tariff on softwood lumber entering the U.S. from Canada, escalating an intensifying trade dispute between the two countries.
He says he’s not worried about sparking a trade war with Canada but says it has “outsmarted our politicians for many years.”
Trump made the remarks Tuesday while signing an Executive Order promoting agriculture and rural prosperity in U.S.
Also Tuesday, Trump’s point man on the file explicitly linked individual disputes to the broader negotiation. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the reason lumber and dairy have erupted as irritants is they’re not properly addressed in the old agreement, which he calls obsolete.
“Everything relates to everything else when you’re trying to negotiate,” Ross told a news briefing at the White House.
“Think about it: if NAFTA were functioning properly, you wouldn’t be having these kinds of very prickly, very unfortunate, developments back to back. … If NAFTA were negotiated properly, you wouldn’t have these.”
When a reporter pointed out that dairy and lumber aren’t part of the free-trade agreement, Ross replied: “That’s one of the problems.”
As trade tensions escalated with Canada, he made that case from the White House press room podium. He was there to explain why the U.S. administration had begun slapping tariffs averaging 20 per cent on softwood lumber — the latest move in a longstanding dispute.
That led to an unusual scene. The White House’s daily briefing began with exchanges about the most arcane Canadian trade issues, like stumpage fees from public land and dairy regulations that have limited imports of milk proteins.
Some American reporters asked why he was so ostentatiously picking on Canada, such a close ally and neighbour. Ross replied: “They’re generally a good neighbour. That doesn’t mean they don’t have to play by the rules.”