President Trump on Wednesday threw nascent trade talks with Mexico and Canada into disarray, saying he wasn’t sure he wanted to renew the pact that has shaped the North American economy.
Asked about the ongoing process to renew the free-trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, President Trump sounded off on Wednesday: “I don’t know that I’m going to renew it.”
He went on to repeat claims that the United States had no need for Canada or Mexico, the country’s two top trading partners.
“We don’t need anything that Canada has, we don’t need anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office, adding: “We don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber, we don’t need their energy, we don’t need anything that they have.”
The comments come as Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, has started talks with Mexico over the pact, known as the U.S.M.C.A. Mexican officials are scheduled to come to Washington next week for the next round of talks.
Canada has been behind Mexico in launching its own parallel discussions with the United States, but its trade minister visited Washington earlier this month to meet with Mr. Greer, and signaled that technical discussions were about to begin.
But Mr. Trump’s dismissive comments on Wednesday highlighted how hard it will be to renew the U.S.M.C.A., the successor of NAFTA and a trade agreement the president himself signed during his first term. At the time, in January 2020, he called it “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law. It’s the best agreement we’ve ever made.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
