Trump says U.S. ‘not getting along’ with Canada in claim he rebuffed Trudeau
President cites discontent with talks amid bid for last-minute NAFTA summit
U.S. President Donald Trump says he rejected a request for a one-onone meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to discuss NAFTA this week because Canada’s tariffs are too high and the country’s negotiators have refused to budge. In a wide-ranging news conference in New York on Wednesday, Trump also said, “We are very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We don’t like their representative very much.”
It was unclear who Trump was referring to, but Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland has been the chief NAFTA negotiator for Canada.
“We are not getting along with their negotiators,” he said. “Canada has treated us very badly.” Asked why he refused to meet with Trudeau, Trump said, “Because his tariffs are too high and he doesn’t seem to want to move and I told him, ‘forget about it.’” Shortly after Trump’s news conference, the Prime Minister’s Office disputed the president’s statement — insisting it did not request a meeting. Trudeau’s office declined further comment. A source told the National Post Wednesday that Jared Kushner had been trying to orchestrate a last-minute summit between Trump, his father-in-law, and Trudeau in the hope of breaking logjams in the trade talks. “There are some parties working in Washington who think that if the two leaders get together, they may be able to resolve the thornier issues,” said the person, who was familiar with White House deliberations.
Trump quashed any hopes of that Wednesday and it appears Canada is unlikely to join the new trade deal between the U.S. and Mexico by the American-imposed Oct. 1 deadline. While talks are expected to continue after this weekend, the lack of a deal raises the spectre of days or weeks more of trade uncertainty for the Canadian economy. Indeed, the battle lines seemed to stiffen Wednesday, with Ottawa’s ambassador to Washington saying it is up to the Americans to bend on crucial issues. Asked to rate the chances of an agreement being reached this week, ambassador David MacNaughton suggested it was 50-50. “Everybody knows what each other’s position is on all of the major issues and it’s really a question of whether or not the U.S. wants to have a deal,” he said at an event organized by the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global affairs and the Politico news outlet. A day earlier, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer also said many contentious issues remain, but suggested the problem lies with the Canadian side. “The fact is that Canada is not making concessions in areas that we think are essential,” he said. All three countries have pushed to reach an agreement by Oct. 1 so it can be signed by Mexico’s outgoing president before he leaves office Dec. 1, while complying with a U.S. law that says the text of a new trade deal must be released 60 days before it’s signed.
Both the U.S. and Mexico have said they will press ahead with the bilateral accord they reached last month, with or without Canada. But negotiators have indicated American-Canadian talks will continue even after the deadline this weekend has passed.
“I don’t really see the elements of a deal,” said Mark Warner, a Toronto-based trade lawyer. “I don’t see the path to resolving those issues.” MacNaughton suggested the two sides were deadlocked over U.S. demands to scrap NAFTA’s Chapter-19 mechanism for resolving disputes, the imposition of U.S. “national-security” tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and the threat of tariffs on auto exports from here.
He also mentioned another tough issue, American demands for greater access to Canada’s supply-managed dairy market.