Adviser sorry for Trudeau remark
President Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro expressed regret Tuesday for having said there is “a special place in hell” for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“Let me correct a mistake I made,” Navarro said at a Wall Street Journal conference, according to video provided by the Journal’s CFO Network. “In conveying that message I used language that was inappropriate.”
Trump was furious after Trudeau said at the end of a contentious economic summit in Quebec that he wouldn’t let Canada be pushed around in trade relations with the United States.
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Navarro said: “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in badfaith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump.”
A spokeswoman for Trudeau, Eleanore Catenaro, declined to comment on Navarro’s acknowledgement of a mistake.
The United States has alienated Canada and other allies by imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The move has been roundly criticized by Canada and the European Union, leading to heightened tensions at last week’s summit of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies — just before Trump left for Singapore and a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
On Tuesday, Trump kept up the attack on Trudeau. At a news conference after his meeting with Kim, the president said Trudeau must not have realized Trump had televisions on Air Force One, allowing him to monitor Trudeau’s news Navarro conference at the end of the G-7 summit.
“And I see the television, and he’s giving a news conference about how he will not be pushed around by the United States. I say, ‘Push them around? We just shook hands.’ It was very friendly.”
Trump was asked about the contrast between the respect he accorded Kim in Singapore and the hostility he showed Trudeau in recent days, and what he would say to those who worry he is treating America’s longtime friends as enemies and its longtime enemies as friends.
“I think it’s a very fair question,” Trump said. “I had a very good meeting with the G-7. And I left the meeting, and I’ll be honest, we’re being taken advantage of by virtually every one of those countries very seriously.”