Canada looks to ride out Trump trade storm

CANADA: Canada moved to tamp down spiking tensions with the United States on Tuesday, brushing aside a warning by US President Donald Trump that it will pay for Justin Trudeau’s G7 summit remarks.

Trudeau struck a steady-as-he-goes pose after Trump’s latest dig, telling reporters, “I’m going to stay focused on defending jobs for Canadians and supporting Canadian interests.”

And Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is traveling to Washington on Wednesday to try to salvage the North American Free Trade Agreement, also emphasized the need for calm.

“From day one, we have said that we expected moments of drama and that we would keep calm and carry on throughout this drama,” she said.

But a source close to Trudeau told AFP Canada was “prepared for all eventualities.”

“If the US decides to apply new tariffs, Canada will be ready,” the official said.

Bitter differences over trade dominated the summit Trudeau hosted over the weekend, with leaders of the world’s largest economies lining up against Trump’s threats to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

An angry Trump refused to sign a joint statement issued at the end of the summit, and he and his top aides assailed Trudeau, accusing him of dishonesty and betrayal.

Trudeau had said using national security as a justification for tariffs was “kind of insulting” to Canadian veterans who had stood by their US allies in conflicts dating back to World War I.

“Canadians are polite and reasonable but we will also not be pushed around,” he said.

And he confirmed that Canada would press ahead with dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs on July 1 as previously announced.

Trudeau, Trump told ABC News, “shouldn’t have done that. That was a mistake.”

The bust-up has sent relations between the US and Canada, historically the closest of allies and trading partners, to a new low.

On Tuesday, Trump barely let up, telling reporters in Singapore, after his summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, that while the G7 summit was “good” Trudeau’s critical comments would cost Canada “a lot of money.”

The only hint of a softening came when Peter Navarro, the White House economic advisor, apologized for saying there was a “special place in hell” for Trudeau.

“I used language that was inappropriate,” Navarro was quoted as saying at a Washington event organized by The Wall Street Journal.

Trump, meanwhile, renewed his criticisms of Canada’s protection of its dairy sector, saying: “It’s very unfair to our farmers, and it’s very unfair to the people of our country.”

“We need to focus on the facts,” and recall that Washington protects its industries too, a senior Canadian official said, pointing to US agricultural subsidies.

- AFP