Discussion on US-Canada Trade Relations

Karni was saying this morning that he got – Trump called him yesterday and they had

a constructive conversation about NATO and the war in the Middle East and the situation

in the Middle East, but that Karni did not raise Kuzma with Trump.

I wonder what you think of that and how you would have handled that conversation if you

got the call from Trump to talk about NATO.

Well, first of all, I hope they had a good call.

We need a good relationship between our two countries.

I definitely would have raised Kuzma.

We have workers in aluminum, steel, autos, lumber who are losing their jobs.

Just in British Columbia, they've lost 30 mills in the last decade.

And these mills are literally the anchor of entire towns.

Similar story in rural Quebec.

We need the prime minister to get a good deal and fast.

He promised he'd have one a year ago, but since that time,

he's made a phenomenal amount of concessions

while getting nothing in return.

I just find it incredible that he's

made about six major concessions.

Digital services tax, Netflix tax,

removing counter tariffs, the defense spending,

the list goes on and on.

Many of those things needed to happen.

But why not bring them to the negotiating table

and get something in return?

Instead, what he's got is double the tariffs on aluminum and steel and triple on lumber.

What I would do is build up our leverage, and we have a lot, by committing to build

a strategic reserve of the 10 most critical minerals, according to NATO, you need to fight

a war.

Put those in a reserve.

Commit to increasing oil production by another 2 million barrels.

And offer the Americans the prospect that those resources could be available for their

purchase in a tailored way if we get a deal.

tariff-free access to their markets. We need leverage, positive leverage. That's

what President Trump has said, it's what he's written in his own book. We have

that leverage through our resources and we can massively enrich our people by

using those resources and at the same time get the tariffs removed so our

economy can grow.