Getty Images
President Donald Trump tweeted near midday on Saturday that there is no overriding political imperative to include Canada in a revamped version of the tripartite North American Free Trade Agreement, warning Congress to remain on the sidelines lest he terminate the agreement entirely.
There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2018
Early in the week Trump discussed in a phone call with outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto a new framework governing U.S. trade with Mexico. Trump called it “a big day” for trade, though few details emerged and much discussion centered on the preliminary nature of the agreement and the peculiarity of the televised telephone-call event. Talks with Canada were reportedly suspended late Friday with no agreement on reworked terms of trade.
Trump complained bitterly late Friday that negative comments about Canada that he’d believed to be off the record had made their way into print.
On Saturday, shortly after the president reportedly left the White House for an undisclosed destination (while much of official Washington was gathered at the National Cathedral for Sen. John McCain’s memorial service), Trump was signaling a willingness to pursue a “new NAFTA deal” sans Canada.
He went on in a follow-up post to Twitter to label Nafta, as he had done previously, “one of the WORST trade deals ever made.”
Referring to a reconstituted trade pact as a new Nafta marked something of a departure for Trump, who on Monday, during his conversation with Mexico’s Peña Nieto, said the name would be dropped due to its “bad connotations.”
Nafta was signed into law in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.