President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that the United States does not have to sign any deals on trade.
The president, who appeared frustrated with reporters asking when the first tariff deal would finally be announced, snapped that it was incumbent on other countries to agree on a deal with the U.S., not the other way round.
“Everybody says, ‘when, when are you going to sign deals?’ We don’t have to sign deals. I can sign 25 deals right now… if I wanted. They have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market, we don’t want a piece of their market. We don’t care about their market,” Trump said.
What to Know
- Trump said that, within the next two weeks, he would sit down with his administration officials to decide on deals for each country.
- “They are going to pay for the privilege of being able to shop in the United States of America. Think of us as a super luxury store. A store that has the goods,” Trump said.
- He was speaking during a meeting with Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House on Tuesday.
Carney says he asked Trump directly to stop calling Canada the 51st state
Mark Carney told reporters, after his meeting with Donald Trump, that he asked the president directly to stop referring to Canada as America’s 51st state.
Trump’s repeated comments about annexing America’s northern neighbor has infuriated many Canadians who view it as a threat to their sovereignty.
Carney told a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon that he had directly asked Trump to stop referring to Canada as its 51st state, but it doesn’t appear Trump agreed.
When asked what Trump had said, Carney responded. “He’s the president, he’s his own person.”
‘I’m glad that you couldn’t tell what was going through my mind,’ says Carney of meeting
Mark Carney joked that he was “glad that you couldn’t tell what was going through my mind” when President Trump began talking in their meeting, about making Canada the 51st state.
The Canadian prime minister had looked uncomfortable at time during the Oval Office meeting where he had often struggled to get a word in.
When asked what he felt about the annexation threats, he said, “I’ve been careful always to distinguish between wish and reality.
“I was clear there in the Oval Office.. that was never going to happen.”
Carney sees signs of ‘healthier relationship’ between US and Canada after meeting
Mark Carney says he feels more confident about U.S.-Canada relations after the meeting with Donald Trump.
“It was a very constructive meeting,” he said. “I feel better about the relations in… many respects.”
The Canadian prime minister said he took confidence in the “posture or the positioning the president took towards us,” after Trump took a decidedly friendly tone with him.
He added that the “breadth of discussion and the how concrete the discussions were… are discussions you have when you’re looking to find solutions, rather than laying down terms.”
Carney also said that he and the U.S. president discussed a number of global issues and found they had “common concerns” on many of them, “which is a sign of a healthier relationship.”
“We have a lot more work to do … we can’t have one meeting and everything’s changed but we are engaged. We are fully engaged,” he added.
Carney added that he and Trump were having “a very complex negotiation about a wide range of issues.”
Carney says focus is ‘build at home’ after Trump said he doesn’t want Canadian cars, energy
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said it was important to focus on building “at home” following his discussion with Donald Trump who implied that the U.S. was not interested in buying Canadian goods.
“We are masters in our own home and we can give ourselves far more than any foreign government can ever take away,” Carney said.
“So now is the time to build, based on the discussion today, to build at home and build with our partners abroad, including the United States.”
President Trump said, during their Oval Office meeting, that he was not interested in Canadian cars or having American cars built in Canada any longer.
He also appeared to reject Canadian energy, saying that the U.S. had surpluses it could never use. (Newsweek)