Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that the Trump administration played hardball on trade this week by demanding that he agree to the inclusion of a sunset clause in the North American Free Trade Agreement as precondition for a meeting to discuss Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trudeau balked, and as a consequence the meeting didn’t happen. The U.S. announced Thursday it was going ahead with steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada and other countries.
In a press conference Thursday announcing retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., Trudeau said the demand came from Vice President Mike Pence, who told Trudeau in a phone call that he would have to agree to adding a five-year sunset clause to NAFTA just to have the meeting. Trudeau said that was “completely unacceptable.”
“So I answered that if that was a precondition to my visit I was unable to accept,” Trudeau said. “And so we did not go to Washington.”
The Trump administration has long pushed for adding a clause to the 1993 trade deal causing it to automatically expire after a period of time if the member countries don’t agree to extend it.
A Trump administration source who requested anonymity said the White House told the Canadian government on Tuesday that there was no point in holding any meeting if both sides weren’t ready to come to some agreement on a sunset clause, among other issues.
“It was one of many issues the administration needed clarity on before it made sense to move forward with any meeting,” the source said.
