OTTAWA -- U.S. President Donald Trump is "very seriously contemplating" a "shift: in the NAFTA negotiations, eyeing separate negotiations with Canada and Mexico, according to his economic adviser Larry Kudlow.
In an interview on Fox and Friends, Kudlow said Trump wanted him to convey he "may be moving quickly" towards bilateral talks, leaving the fate of NAFTA as it stands, uncertain.
Kudlow said Trump won’t be withdrawing from the NAFTA deal, rather "he's just going to try a different approach."
In the interview he also said that he spoke to one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s "top people" on Monday, without naming who it was. Kudlow said he expects that senior Canadian official to get back to him Tuesday on Trump's new thinking.
"Canada is a different country than Mexico, they have different problems. He’s believed that bilaterals have always been better," Kudlow said, adding that he "hates" multilateral deals.
"Often times when you have to compromise with a whole bunch of countries, you get the worst of the deals, (so) why not try to get the best of the deals for the American people?" Kudlow said.
Trump floated the idea of separate deals late last week, following the U.S. administration levelling tariffs on Canada and Mexico’s steel and aluminum industries. Both countries have responded with retaliatory countermeasures, though Canada and Mexico have said they are still willing to work out a modernized NAFTA agreement.
