US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he does not care about updating the North American trade agreement as Canada disclosed plans to send senior trade officials to Washington for more talks this week amid new tariffs and heightened trade tensions, reported Reuters.
Trump, who on July 1 opted against extending the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, told Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" program that the six-year-old trade pact was more important to the US' North American neighbours.
Asked if he would update the US-Mexico-Canada agreement, Trump said in a phone call to the program: "I don't care. I mean, I don't really want to. I'd rather be independent. Here's the thing: Mexico and Canada need us. We don't need them. The deal is important for them. It's not important for us."
Trump's decision not to renew USMCA during a review meeting set in motion a decade-long wind-down of the trade pact unless the three countries can agree on revisions before then.
The president's trade chief, Jamieson Greer, held a third round of talks with Mexico last week aimed at updating USMCA, but the discussionsrevealed deep differences over how to tighten regional automotive content rules. Trump has breached the USMCA duty-free zone by imposing a 25% tariff on Mexican- and Canadian-built cars and trucks and 50% on their steel and aluminum products on national security grounds.
The tariffs put Mexico and Canada at a trade disadvantage to South Korea, Japan and the European Union, but Trump's comments suggest that he believes his strategy is working to bring back manufacturing to the United States. He cited Toyota's recent announcement that it intends to invest $3.6 billion to expand truck production in Texas to build a pickup there that it now assembles in Mexico.
"We have the hottest car business. We're right now building more car plants than at any time in our history," Trump said, adding that automakers "have no tariffs if they build their product here."
Click here to see more...