Trump to examine 16 trade partners; Freeland says U.S. has surplus with Canada
OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is taking aim at a core assumption of Donald Trump’s upcoming review of American trading partners — she said Friday the U.S. has a trade surplus with Canada, not the other way around.
Freeland’s assessment comes as Trump prepared to hold his country’s major trading partners to account. The president wants to determine which countries are using abusive trade practices to run export surpluses — and Canada is among those to be examined.
Trump signed an executive order Friday demanding a study within 90 days of all the ways other countries allegedly pull fast ones on the United States through anti-competitive trade practices.
It will be a systematic examination of things like non-tariff barriers, lax legal enforcement, currency manipulation and other means that keep out American goods while other countries boost their own exports.