U.S. officials are threatening major changes to a trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that could upend the way business is done and leave Canada on the outs.
Earlier this month, President Trump found the latest pressure point to extend his leverage over Canada: a new bridge connecting the country to the United States that is expected to open this year.
Mr. Trump threatened to block the opening, just hours after the billionaire owner of a competing U.S.-Canada bridge met with Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary. It wasn’t that the president was particularly passionate about the new bridge. What excited him, officials familiar with his thinking said, was the opportunity to use the bridge to force Canada to make trade concessions.
“I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve,” Mr. Trump said on social media on Feb. 9.
The threat was a preview of the high-pressure tactics the president is expected to deploy when his administration renegotiates a trade deal with Canada and Mexico. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Mr. Trump signed into law during his first term, is set to be reviewed by the summer.
U.S. officials have been raising pressure on Canada to get it to concede to their demands over trade and other issues. Mr. Trump’s threat to block the Detroit-to-Windsor bridge was the latest in a series of flash points that Mr. Trump has capitalized on to needle Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada. In October, Mr. Trump suspended trade talks over an advertisement featuring a historical address by President Ronald Reagan decrying tariffs, which was paid for by the Province of Ontario and aired in the United States. Mr. Carney apologized.
The Trump administration has a list of things it wants Mr. Carney to concede, including longstanding grievances about protected industries in Canada, including the dairy sector. Another pressing issue for the U.S. administration is the fact that liquor distributors controlled by Ontario and other provincial governments in Canada pulled U.S. liquor off their shelves last year, in retaliation against Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Canada.
Trump administration officials have also been irked by Mr. Carney’s global charm offensive as he seeks to bolster Canada’s trade relationships with other countries, including China. Responding to a modest tariff deal that Mr. Carney struck during a visit to Beijing last month, Mr. Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, and claimed that China would “take over” Canada and even ban hockey.
He also responded bitterly to Mr. Carney’s speech in Davos, Switzerland, where he said that the era of a U.S.-led global order was over and that middle powers like Canada should band together to defend their interests.
“Canada lives because of the United States,” Mr. Trump said the day after Mr. Carney’s Davos speech. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
