President Donald Trump’s top trade advisor, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, said Canada walked away from the “best deal in the world” after the nation declined to finalize a trade agreement with the U.S. nearly two weeks ago.
Greer joined “Special Report” on Thursday to detail the negotiations that preceded the contentious trade fight between the U.S. and its northern neighbor.
“We offered them the best deal. They looked at it square in the face and turned around,” he said on “Special Report.”
Greer’s comments come amid a fierce trade war between the U.S. and Canada that Trump further escalated by signing an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”
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The trade chief said that although Trump’s trade program already gives Canada “the best deal,” U.S. officials were willing to negotiate after Canadian authorities approached the administration seeking a revised agreement.
“I told them what we could deliver. I said, ‘We could try to give you the best deal in the world on steel, aluminum, autos and help you out on lumber,’” Greer told Fox News. “These are things very sensitive for the Canadians, and we managed to move the levers of our government to give them that deal.”
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After Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney reached the handshake agreement, Canadian officials returned to Ottawa. Greer said he remains unsure what transpired there that ultimately prompted Canada to renege on the deal and seek additional concessions.
“When they came back, they wanted more, they wanted more tariff relief. It wasn’t good enough to have the best deal in the world,” he told Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier. “They wanted it to be even better… These are things we couldn’t accommodate.”
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Canada suspended trade talks on Aug. 21. U.S. trade officials blamed the breakdown on what they described as “new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada” that “upended the careful balance” of the negotiations.
“We were ready to do it. We gave them the best deal in the world. Did it give them everything? No. Did we have everything we wanted? No. That’s how a deal works,” Greer said.
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The trade chief said Canadian leaders appeared on television after the agreement fell apart and claimed the country had “been attacked.”
Greer pushed back on that characterization, arguing that the “vast majority” of Canadian goods enter the U.S. duty-free and noting that Canada, along with China, are the only countries to have retaliated against U.S. trade measures.
“Since even before the second Trump term, they’ve limited our ability to sell dairy into Canada, and they’re importing things from China,” he said. “They’re turning them into other goods and trying to get them duty-free across our border.”
Greer, who believes the Canadians were negotiating in good faith, said he has received some outreach from Canada but no formal negotiations since Aug. 21.
As for what comes next, Greer said the trade deal’s future now lies “in Canada’s corner.”
