Trudea with Trump at the White House last year.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is warning Canada that any renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement must be “a fair deal, or there will be no deal at all,” escalating a leader-level standoff triggered by U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum.
“The United States has been taken advantage of for many decades on trade,” Trump said in a statement released Thursday night by the White House. “Those days are over. Earlier today, this message was conveyed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada: The United States will agree to a fair deal, or there will be no deal at all.” He followed up with a tweet Friday criticizing Canadian agricultural policy.
The statement was an apparent response to remarks made by a frustrated Trudeau earlier Thursday, when he announced retaliatory tariffs. The Canadian leader said a planned meeting with Trump to potentially seal a NAFTA deal collapsed after Vice President Mike Pence called and insisted the meeting was conditional on adding a sunset clause.
The development is the latest sign of leaders hardening their positions — Trudeau said he saw an accord within reach but other core disputes remain, including the sunset clause. Canada and Mexico have signaled there’d only be a quick deal if the U.S. made concessions on outstanding issues to seal a win on automobiles. If the U.S. digs in instead, NAFTA talks look set to drag on, or worse: Trump repeatedly threatens to quit the current NAFTA altogether.
In a broadening of trade tensions, America’s closest allies plan to slap billions of dollars in tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. goods after the Trump administration announced it’s imposing steel and aluminum duties on them. The reaction was swift after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced the U.S. on Friday will levy new metals duties on imports from the European Union, Mexico and Canada on national security grounds, ending their temporary exemptions.
Quitting NAFTA would be yet another explosive and controversial trade move by the Trump administration. The U.S., Canada and Mexico trade more than a trillion dollars in goods annually. It would also signal no one is safe: Mexico and Canada are the top two buyers of U.S. exports.
Trump made his threat Thursday, but Trudeau made the same one two days earlier. He said during a Bloomberg interview in Toronto that killing NAFTA — the existing 1994 deal, as Trump threatens — is better for Canada than swallowing a bad deal to update it.
{{title}}
{{abstract}}
Be the first to comment