Trump won't meet Carney 'for a while' as Canadian PM says they were close to a trade deal
Donald Trump says he would not meet with Mark Carney “for a while.” Meanwhile, the Canadian prime minister told reporters they were close to reaching a trade deal before the fallout caused by an anti-tariff advertisement .
Both leaders are in Asia this week. On Friday, the U.S. president spoke to reporters before travelling to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. He was asked if he would see Carney. “I don’t have any intention of it. No,” Trump responded .
On Monday, after the summit, while Trump was en route to Japan, he reasserted that he did not want to meet with Carney “for a while.”
“No, I’m very happy with the deal we have right now with Canada,” he said.
Trump said last week that negotiations with Canada were “terminated” after an anti-tariff ad by the Ontario government featured the late former American president Ronald Reagan. Trump called the ad “fake” and said that tariffs are “very important to the national security and economy of the U.S.A.”
He then said that the U.S. would increase Canada’s tariffs by 10 per cent.
When asked by reporters on Monday, Trump did not say when the increase would take effect. “Ronald Reagan loved tariffs,” he said, adding that the former president used them “sparingly.”
“I was the biggest fan of Ronald Reagan, but on finance, on trade, it wasn’t his strong suit,” said Trump. He said that Canada has been “ripping off” the U.S. for “a long time.”
“One of the most difficult countries to deal with has been Canada. As much as I love Canada itself and the people of Canada, they’ve just had bad representatives,” he said.
Before trade talks disintegrated, Carney said there were “very detailed, very specific, very comprehensive” negotiations about steel, aluminum and energy “up until the point of those ads running,” he said on Monday in Malaysia.
“We stand ready to pick up on those discussions,” he said. “In any complicated high stakes negotiation, you can get unexpected twists and turns. You have to keep your cool during those situations. It doesn’t pay to be upset. Emotions don’t carry you very far. We had made progress … and we stand by the progress that had been made.”
Both of the leaders are expected to be in South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week.
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