Trump gets pushback from allies, GOP on trade

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump defended his tough trade negotiations with China, Canada and Mexico on Monday, saying the U.S. would soon be in a stronger position with its top trading partners. Trump faced pushback from U.S. allies and an influential Republican group, which warned that the tariffs would hinder the nation’s economy.

Trump wrote in a series of tweets that his trade negotiations with China and a slew of U.S. allies would break down large trade barriers faced by American farmers. He wrote that China “already charges a tax of 16% on soybeans. Canada has all sorts of trade barriers on our Agricultural products. Not acceptable!”

In a conference call later Monday with grassroots supporters, he said, “We will be in a very strong position very soon. We don’t want to be taken advantage of anymore.”

The president last week imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from top

U.S. trading partners, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union. And he has threatened tariffs on up to $200 billion in Chinese imports, raising the potential for retaliation in a dispute involving the globe’s two largest economies.

Senate Republicans have warned that the tariffs could dampen the economic gains from the GOP tax cuts and sour the mood among voters as lawmakers campaign to protect the Republican majority in Congress in November midterm elections.

Many Farm Belt lawmakers worry that the trade disputes could make American farmers the target of retaliation. Mexico, for example, has said it will penalize U.S. imports including pork, apples, grapes and cheese.

Groups backed by the influential Koch brothers’ network announced Monday they were launching a new multimillion-dollar campaign to oppose tariffs and highlight the benefits of free trade. The groups — Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and The LIBRE Initiative — called on Congress to exert oversight by requiring House and Senate votes on any new tariffs and urged the lifting of the recent steel and aluminum tariffs as well as those being proposed on goods from China.

Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, said the tariffs amounted to “self-imposed barriers” to the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul that Trump signed into law in December. “The Trump administration has taken some incredibly positive steps for the American economy, but tariffs will undercut that progress and needlessly hamstring our full economic potential,” he said in a statement.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said senators would continue to try to talk the administration out of the plan and compared the tariffs to an “unguided missile” because “retaliation could occur” in vulnerable sectors.

Trump has also received blowback from world leaders. British Prime Minister Theresa May told Trump in a phone call that his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the European Union was “unjustified and deeply disappointing.” May’s office said the two leaders would discuss “free and fair global trade” at the forthcoming Group of Seven summit in Canada.

“We still have a few days to avoid an escalation. We still have a few days to take the necessary steps to avoid a trade war between the EU and the U.S.,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said after a meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors in Whistler, British Columbia.

The warning came after an acrimonious three days of talks — with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the receiving end of much of the frustration — in which America’s allies protested against Trump’s tariffs decision.

Trump meets leaders of the other six major industrialized nations Friday at a summit in the Quebec resort town of Charlevoix, near the border with Maine.

Trump’s hard-line rhetoric comes as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross returns from China as part of the ongoing trade discussions. The White House said the meeting focused on reducing the U.S. trade deficit by having China buy more agricultural and energy products.

But China said any agreements with Washington in their talks on settling a sprawling trade dispute “will not take effect” if threatened U.S. sanctions including tariff increases go ahead.

Closer to home, Congress probably won’t have time to approve a new North American Free Trade Agreement this year, as Cabinet members from the three trading partners continue to negotiate changes to the pact, said Cornyn, on Monday, the Senate majority whip.

Asked if the deadline for congressional approval of a new deal had run out, Cornyn said, “yeah, I think so.”

“It looks like they are kicking it over to 2019,” he told reporters. “I wish it had been handled earlier.”

Cornyn’s comments are the most definitive after House Speaker Paul Ryan said early last month that American legislators needed notice of a NAFTA deal by May 17 so they could vote before this Congress ends in 2018. Ryan later said there might be a couple of weeks of wiggle room, placing the deadline around early June.

The U.S., Mexico and Canada have been holding periodic discussions since August after Trump threatened to withdraw from the 24-year-old pact if he can’t renegotiate one that would shrink America’s trade deficit and increase manufacturing jobs. It could take Congress at least six months to vote on a new agreement after it receives notice that a deal has been reached.

Information for this article was contributed by Ken Thomas and Lisa Mascaro of The Associated Press and by Andrew Mayeda, Yuko Takeo, Justin Sink, Jana Randow, Jenny Leonard and Erik Wasson of Bloomberg News.