Trump on Canada trade deficit claim: I had no idea

US President Donald Trump has boasted that he has made up a claim about Canada's trade surplus with the US during a recent meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In a private 30-minute speech to donors in Missouri on Wednesday, the audio of which has been obtained by The Washington Post, Trump said that during the meeting with Trudeau, he insisted that the United States runs a trade deficit with its northern neighbor without knowing whether that was true.

"I did not even know, I had no idea, I just said you are wrong. You know why? Because we are so stupid. I said you are wrong Justin," Trump is heard to be saying to the fundraisers in the audio file.

This is while, Trump’s own economic report in 2018, released and signed by the president in February, confirms that the US runs “a net bilateral surplus only with Canada and the United Kingdom.” Moreover, according to the office of the US Trade Representative, the US had $12.5 billion trade surplus in goods and services with Canada in 2016.

Trump came on Twitter on Thursday to reiterate his false assertion that the US runs a trade “deficit” with Canada, accusing other countries of refusing to accept the existence of such imbalances.  

"We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive),” Trump said on Twitter on Thursday morning. “P.M. Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the US (negotiating), but they do... they almost all do...and that’s how I know!” Trump tweeted.

Trump also reportedly called on staff to examine Trudeau’s assertion that the US does have a trade surplus with Canada. The US president then argued that the statistics do not include energy and timber, “and when you do, we lose $17 billion a year,” he said. "It is incredible."

The White House defended Trump's comments on Thursday, stressing that the data showing a surplus are "not complete."

"The president was accurate because there is a trade deficit and that was the point he was making," White House press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.

"There are plenty of things, once you take into the full account all of the trade between the two countries, that show that there actually is a deficit between those two," she added.

The controversy comes as Trump's administration has been negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which took effect in 1994, with Canada and Mexico, calling it a “bad deal” for Americans. Trump says under NAFTA, the US has large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada.

US runs a trade surplus: Canada

Canada’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Adam Austen, who is leading the NAFTA talks for Ottawa, rejected Trump’s latest remarks on Thursday.

“Canada and the United States have a balanced and mutually beneficial trading relationship. According to their own statistics, the US runs a trade surplus with Canada,” Austen said.

 “We are energetically at work modernizing and updating NAFTA to support good jobs and the middle class in Canada, the United States, and Mexico,” he added.

The next round of NAFTA negotiations are scheduled to be held next month. Observers say Trump’s latest remarks are unlikely to have any significant effect on the talks.

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