At a meeting between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday, the U.S. president noted the country’s “outstanding” relationship with its neighbor north of the border and said, regarding changes to NAFTA, “We’ll be tweaking it.”
“We’ll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries,” The Hill reported Trump as saying at a joint press conference with Trudeau.
Mexico, however, may remain on Trump’s naughty list when it comes to trade relations. With Canada, according to Trump, trade dealings have been just fine compared to Mexico.
“It’s a much less severe situation than what’s taken place on the southern border,” Trump said, adding that transactions with Mexico have been unfair to the U.S. and that the planned tweaks would make the trade relationship “fair for both parties.”
Trump has floated the idea of imposing a 20 percent blanket tax on all imports from Mexico in hopes that some of those funds could help pay for his border wall, but there has been little said about changes that could make the trade relationship between the U.S. and Mexico more fair for either side.
For Canada, it seems everything’s coming up roses for maintaining the world’s largest trade relationship. Canada valued its bilateral trade with the U.S. at more than $885 billion in 2015, and said $2.4 billion worth of goods and services cross the border between the nations daily.
A statement on the Canadian prime minister’s website Monday said, “The partnership enjoyed by Canada and the United States has been essential to our shared prosperity and security, and has long served as a model for the rest of the world,” Trudeau said. “I had a productive meeting with President Trump and members of the U.S. administration, and I look forward to working together to create more opportunities for the middle class on both sides of the border.”