Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick accused Canada’s Liberal government of deliberately derailing the trade agreement with the Trump administration for political gain.
“This is the Canadian Liberal Party using their economy to get themselves elected, even if they’re selling their own citizens down the river. It’s sad and disappointing,” Lutnick told Bloomberg, speaking of the failed negotiations.
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The United States and Canada have been locked in a tense trade dispute in recent weeks after negotiations toward a new agreement broke down, prompting Washington to impose additional tariffs on Canadian goods and Ottawa to retaliate with tariffs of its own.
The latest round of U.S. tariffs applies to roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, including hockey sticks, wine, cement, lumber, and certain apparel and beauty products.
The trade talks collapsed on Aug. 21, just hours before a deadline set by Trump.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the Trump administration had introduced last-minute changes to the framework of a possible agreement that he described as “unfair” and “uneconomic.”
Carney said the changes called into question the reliability of any eventual deal. Among the issues, he said, were proposed changes to an agreement on automobile tariffs and restrictions on Canada’s ability to negotiate trade agreements with other countries.
But Lutnick offered a different reason for how the negotiations collapsed.
According to Lutnick, Canadian officials initially approached the Trump administration about reaching an interim trade agreement before beginning broader negotiations over the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
“We worked … six weeks of negotiations, and we hammered out a deal,” Lutnick said.
He said Carney spoke with Trump several times and that the two leaders reached an agreement, prompting Trump to announce that the two countries had a deal while officials worked out the final details. But Lutnick said the negotiations unraveled late in the process when Canadian officials raised additional issues.
“Friday at 4 o’clock, for example, my Canadian counterparts called me and said, ‘We’d like heavy trucks,’” Lutnick said. “And I said no. Listen, it’s Friday at 4 o’clock. We’re signing it at like six or seven. There’s no new topic that you’re coming up with now.”
Lutnick said he then asked his Canadian counterpart, “Are you trying to blow this up?”
“And the answer was, and I quote, ‘I’m not allowed to say that,'” Lutnick said.
According to Lutnick, the political considerations in Canada were driving the decision.
“They decided, for political reasons, domestically, domestic Canada, they’d rather fight with Donald Trump, even if it’s bad for the economy of Canada, for their political ambition to get certain elections,” Lutnick said.
Lutnick also dismissed Carney’s concerns over language provisions, calling the dispute over French-language protections “nonsense” and arguing that the U.S. does not seek to dictate how other countries conduct their domestic affairs.
“You think the American side talked about how people speak in Quebec?” Lutnick said. “We have a deal with France. We have a deal with Italy. We have a deal with Germany. We don’t care about their language.”
EL SAYED RIPS TRUMP’S TARIFF ‘VANITY WAR’ AGAINST CANADA’S CARNEY
The latest tariffs stem from measures first announced by the Trump administration in July and rely on a provision of a law dating to the Great Depression.
Meanwhile, Trump has also continued to escalate his rhetoric toward Canada during the dispute. He recently signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America,” arguing that Canada has “been ripping us off for a long time on trade.”
