“They are ready to give us everything we want”: Donald Trump assures that a trade agreement with Canada will arrive “quickly”

American President Donald Trump affirmed this Sunday, October 25, during a meeting in Michigan (north), that a trade agreement with Canada would come "rapidly", while the two countries have seen their trade relations become significantly strained in recent months. “We are going to have this resolved quickly, they are ready to give us everything we want,” assured Donald Trump during a meeting in Port Huron, in the north of the state, where he came to support Republican candidates in view of the mid-term elections, scheduled for November 3. He once again justified the customs duties applied to Canadian products, once again accusing Canada of “continuously stealing” from the United States.

“Excess of power” Ottawa and Washington saw their trade relations sour at the end of August, after the failure of negotiations between the two countries to avoid the implementation of a surcharge of 20 billion dollars on Canadian products, including cement, wine and hockey sticks. The Canadian government then responded with customs duties on an equivalent amount of American imports, angering Donald Trump, who responded with new customs duties of up to 50% on certain products. On Friday, the White House, however, announced an evolution of the list of Canadian products affected by the 50% customs duties, in order to respond to a request from Senator from Maine (north), Susan Collins, neck and neck with her Democratic opponent.

An American company, specializing in the importation of foodstuffs, filed a complaint on Tuesday against these surcharges, considering that it was an “excess of power causing immediate damage to American companies, their suppliers and customers”.

Machine-translated from French