During a rare press conference today, President Donald Trump was asked by a Fox News reporter if he’d rejected a one-on-one meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump said he had.
Trump Confirms Rejecting Trudeau's Meeting Invite: 'I Told Him 'Forget About It'' https://t.co/xN7avD5Tqd
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 26, 2018
“His tariffs are too high and he doesn’t seem to want to move, and I told him forget about it,” Trump said. “Frankly, we’re thinking of just taxing cars that come in from Canada. That’s the motherlode.”
The problem? The prime minister’s officer said there was no meeting to reject, as it had never suggested one. Cameron Ahmad, Trudeau’s spokesperson, told several reporters that “no meeting was requested.”
New: Trudeau spokesperson suggests Trump was lying when he said he turned down a meeting with Trudeau.
"No meeting was requested," Cameron Ahmad says.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 26, 2018
Trump criticized the Canadian trade delegation for not striking a revised NAFTA deal, and in particular said he doesn’t “like very much” its chief negotiator, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. He noted that revising NAFTA terms was easy with Mexico, though trade experts have said the Mexican government gave up very little in its revisions.