Trump’s top trade envoy says U.S. ‘comfortable’ with state of relationship with Canada

U.S. President Donald Trump is “comfortable” with where things stand with Canada — his country’s once closest ally — and is in no rush to reach a new trade deal, according to his top trade envoy.

“The reality is President Trump is comfortable where we are on Canada,” United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a Friday morning interview with the American network CNBC.

“They call us now and then and we have good conversations about potential deals. But there’s no urgency on our side.”

The two countries have been embroiled in a trade dispute since Trump was re-elected, but the relationship further soured after talks to reach a deal collapsed at the 11th hour last month.

The U.S. side maintains Canada walked away from a good deal. The Canadian side has accused the Americans of not negotiating in good faith and encroaching on Canada’s sovereignty.

Greer, who mainly spoke to CNBC about new trade negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping, was asked about the state of the trade relationship with Canada.

“We’re still getting what we need from them in terms of oil, gas, potash, all of these things. We’re shipping [agricultural products] back and forth across the border, so there’s still a lot of strong trade between the two countries,” he said.

The U.S. slapped 50 per cent duties on roughly $28 billion of Canadian goods on Aug. 22. Canada started collecting retaliatory tariffs Sept. 8. The summer measures are on top of existing levies on Canadian steel, aluminum, autos and lumber.

Starting next week, the Trump administration plans to ban the import of certain products including Canadian alcohol, motorcycles and molasses. 

Trump has also ratcheted up his jabs at Canada since trade talks fell apart, including posting to social media a map of North America with the U.S. flag covering Canada and another post showing a cartoon version of himself standing over a sprawled out Prime Minister Mark Carney during a hockey game saying, “Get up, governor.”

He has also signed an order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”

LeBlanc says he talks to Greer a few times a week

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Greer’s comments are consistent with his conversations with the U.S. trade representative — adding he talks to his counterpart a few times a week including later Friday afternoon.

“We’ll continue to do the good faith work to try and get the agreement, but I’m not waiting by my phone to see if I have a text from [U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick on Mr. Greer,” said LeBlanc from Moncton, N.B.

“We’re continuing to do the work, but we are always ready to talk to the Americans about trying to find the right agreement.”

Former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Frank McKenna said he’d be careful with the rhetoric coming from the south that there’s no sense of urgency for a deal.

WATCH | LeBlanc on his conversations with Greer:

Canada not ‘desperate’ to get a U.S. trade deal ‘at any cost,’ says minister

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc says comments from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that the Trump administration is not in a rush to make a deal with Canada are ‘consistent with the conversations’ he’s had with his U.S. counterpart. LeBlanc says the government will keep working to reach an agreement, but ‘we’re not waiting by the phone.’

“I would think in terms of some of the states in play in this midterm election — which is starting to swing pretty sharply blue — there would be some urgency because the affordability issue is the big issue, and trade is associated with affordability,” he told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live.

The former diplomat said that with the two parties still in contact, “at some point, this will become ripe and some kind of a trade deal will be done.”

McKenna, who is also a former premier of New Brunswick, said it’s “a logical imperative” that two countries bound as closely as Canada and the U.S. “would end up eventually having a trade deal.”