President Trump on Saturday sent out a few tweets about the status of his effort to renegotiate NAFTA, while dozens of politicians and thousands of people gathered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. to pay their respects to Sen. John McCain.
The tweets came came out just moments after Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Republican senator, took a swipe at the president by mocking his 2016 campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” she said. Trump and the late senator clashed frequently, and he was not invited to the service planned by McCain before his death at 81 last week.
Trump, who was on his way to Trump National Golf Club in Virginia on Saturday morning, took aim at Canada in the tweets just as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was delivering his eulogy to McCain.
“There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal,” Trump wrote. “If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off…”
He went on to say NAFTA was “one of the WORST Trade Deals ever made.”
There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2018
….Remember, NAFTA was one of the WORST Trade Deals ever made. The U.S. lost thousands of businesses and millions of jobs. We were far better off before NAFTA – should never have been signed. Even the Vat Tax was not accounted for. We make new deal or go back to pre-NAFTA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2018
Canada and the U.S. missed a trade negotiation deadline set by the U.S. on Friday, failing to come to an agreement on the trade deal already agreed to by Mexico. The White House said it would soon submit the bilateral deal to Congress, though talks between the U.S. and Canada are expected to continue.
The missed deadline followed the publication of remarks made by Trump, saying he was not open to making trade concessions with Canada. Trump has said the remarks, reported by Canadian newspaper the Toronto Star, were made off the record to Bloomberg.
