Trump Says He’s Not Focused On Talks With Canada, Tariffs Might Stay
The president’s statements come a day after Canadian officials held a series of meetings in Washington with Republican senators.
US President Donald Trump said trade talks with Canada are not a focus for his administration right now, and instead of negotiating a deal he may decide to just leave existing import taxes in place.
“We haven’t really had a lot of luck with Canada,” Trump told reporters Friday morning.
“I think Canada could be one where they’ll just pay tariffs, not really a negotiation,” he added. “We don’t have a deal with Canada. We haven’t been focused on that.”
The Canadian dollar had a muted reaction to the remarks, which were similar to previous comments by the president. The loonie was trading at C$1.3695 per US dollar as of 10:27 a.m. in New York.
The president’s statements come a day after Canadian officials held a series of meetings in Washington with Republican senators. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also met Wednesday night with Dominic LeBlanc, the Canadian minister in charge of US trade.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has also lowered expectations recently of reaching a deal with Trump by Aug. 1, saying Canada won’t sign a bad agreement just to get one done.
Canadian officials are under less pressure to get a trade deal immediately because most products are currently exempt from US tariffs if they’re shipped under the rules of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the pact Trump signed in his first term.
However, Trump has imposed steep new taxes on imports of Canadian steel, aluminum and autos, and Carney’s team has focused on trying to get those eliminated or reduced.
The US and Canada have one of the world’s largest bilateral trading relationships. The US imported about $477 billion of goods and services from Canada last year and exported $441 billion to Canada.
