President Donald Trump‘s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said negotiations with Canada broke down due to Prime Minister Mark Carney‘s Political goals, addressing the press on Thursday.
‘We’re Just Being Used,’ Howard Lutnick Says
Lutnick, during the briefing shared by Forbes, said that he met Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc “at least 10 times in the last month.” Lutnick then said that he had spoken to Carney twice “in the 24 hours before this [the talks] ended.”
“I have texts back and forth with Mark Carney,” he said, touting a “longstanding relationship” with the Canadian PM since he worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS), he said. “Canada has the best trade deal in the world before we started,” Lutnick said, adding that the country was going to have “the best deal in the world.”
Lutnick then said that “Canada walked away” from the deal, saying that the country made the decision for “political” purposes. “This is politics only,” he said. He also denounced the dispute over the French language. “If you think I ever said the words ‘French,’ do I care about how the Québécois speak? What could matter less to America? We don’t care,” he said.
