Carney to meet Trump on sidelines of FIFA event, as U.S. president threatens to leave trade agreement

What Trump thinks vs. what his voters think

As a hearing kicked off in Washington focused on the future of CUSMA, Trump claimed Mexico and Canada have ‘taken advantage of the United States like just about every other country.’ The hearing saw U.S. agriculture, business and policy groups urging the Trump administration not to scrap the agreement.

Greer’s comments on Politico’s podcast that Trump is considering leaving CUSMA altogether are worrying Canadian business and policy experts at the hearing — but it’s hard to know the true intentions behind the threats.

“We don’t know at this point if that’s simply posturing, if it’s an effort to tie Canada’s hands and to force them to the negotiating table or if it’s a real threat,” Politico reporter Sam Benson told CBC News.

It’s also unclear what Greer’s suggestion that the U.S. would favour creating separate trade agreements with Mexico and Canada would look like. It would be a serious departure from the free trade the countries have participated in since the 1990s.

“What does this final product look like? Is it trilateral or separate, smaller agreements based on specific products, specific markets, which we haven’t seen of course since before NAFTA?” Benson said.

Despite these ideas, Trump’s tariffs are growing unpopular even among his base, according to Benson.

“The longer that these conversations go on, if there isn’t a good deal struck that benefits American consumers and producers, I think that that could have political ramifications for Trump and his party,” Benson said.