U.S. President Donald Trump has called Canada “brutal” when it comes to trade and said that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada.

“Canada is brutal. Canada is really tough,” Trump said at a rally for a Republican congressman in Pennsylvania.

“We have a big deficit with Canada too,” he said. “They send in timber. They send in steel. They send in a lot of things. But our farmers in Wisconsin are not treated well when we want to send things to them.”

The latest figures show that Canada has a small trade surplus with the U.S. on goods, but the U.S. comes out on top when services are factored in.

Trump said he doesn’t “blame” Canada. “They’ve just outsmarted our politicians for decades,” he said. “And I don’t mean (Barack) Obama. I mean all of them, since (George) Bush the first … Frankly Ronald Regan..”

Trump went on to blast China for the size of their tariffs on U.S. automobiles and he suggested that a 25 per cent tariff announced last week on steel is saving jobs. Canada and Mexico have been exempted from the tariffs.

The rally was in support of Republican Rick Saccone, who in the final days of a close special congressional election in a district with an estimated 17,000 steelworkers.

“We need our Congressman Saccone” to "keep America great,” Trump said.

With files from The Associated Press