Canada didn't agree to join a new trade deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement because it feared President Donald Trump's tariffs, and it's not at the point of saying it still won't sign the new pact if the tariffs aren't lifted, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.
"Obviously, the tariffs are a continued frustration," Trudeau told CNN's Poppy Harlow. "What a tariff is is a way of hiking prices on your own domestic consumers. So consumers in the United States are paying more for Canadian steel and aluminum than they otherwise would. We have ran into retaliatory tariffs meaning we are paying more for bourbon and ketchup."
Meanwhile, he would not tell Harlow if he plans to make his move on the tariffs right before Nov. 30, when there will be a new Mexican government in power.
"One of the things that served me well through the 13 months of negotiations is that I don't negotiate in public," said Trudeau.
He also implied he may not entirely trust Trump's promise to not back out of the trade deal.
"What my father taught me was to trust Canadians," said Trudeau, the son of late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. "It was a way of looking at the electorate and saying, you don't have to dumb it down for them."
But when Harlow asked if that meant he does not trust Trump, Trudeau replied that all leaders have the job for sticking up for their own countries.
"I respect the fact that people have different approaches to it," said Trudeau. "My approach is to trust Canadians and deal in a way that is direct with other leaders."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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