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U.S. President Donald Trump spoke highly of Canada on Sunday. But when asked if he would restart trade talks with his northern neighbour, he replied with a vague, “We’ll see.”
While on his way to a gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Trump said he had a “very good, very productive” talk on Friday with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at the sidelines of a World Cup draw event.
A spokesperson for Carney said those talks were “constructive.”
But on restarting the trade talks with Canada, which were suspended in October after the U.S. president bristled at anti-tariff ads run by the province of Ontario during the World Series, Trump was non-committal, only saying “we’ll work it out.”
“They’re very tough traders but I have a very good relationship with the prime minster and with Canada,” he said.
“We’ll see — the problem is that Canada makes a lot of things we don’t need because we make them also, but we’ll work it out. Canada is a special place and they are really good at ice hockey, aren’t they?”
Trade relations between the three nations were upended earlier this year by Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
Trump boosted duties on Canada to 35 per cent in August but has continued to give extensions to Mexico, which was hit by 25 per cent duties. Both countries are also being slammed by the president’s separate tariffs on steel, aluminum, automobiles, lumber and copper.
The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, known as CUSMA, has shielded Canada and Mexico from broad-based tariffs, but the agreement enters its mandatory review period next year. The deal would expire in 2036 if the three parties do not agree to renew it before then.
Mexico and Canada have been searching for tariff off-ramps while making the case for duty-free continental trade as Trump threatens to pull the U.S. out of CUSMA.
