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Freeland defended Ottawa’s stance on Tuesday, saying “any negotiator who goes into a negotiation believing that he or she must get a deal at any price … (will) be forced to pay the maximum price for that deal.”

That approach though is starting to worry some.

“The problem with the bold statement that ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ is that a bad deal is very much in the eye of the beholder,” said John Manley, a former Liberal finance minister who heads the Business Council of Canada, which groups many chief executives.

“Anyone who thought … we were going to get something better than what we had under NAFTA 1.0 was delusional. We knew that this was all about taking some things away,” Manley said by phone on Tuesday.

Trump came to power last year threatening to tear up NAFTA unless major changes were made to a pact he blames for the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Last month he announced a side deal with Mexico and made clear he was prepared to exclude Canada if necessary.

“Canada has taken advantage of our country for a long time. We love Canada … but they are in a position that is not a good position,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, complaining about high Canadian dairy tariffs.

U.S. negotiators are pressing for more access to Canada’s protected dairy market.

Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario – Canada’s most populous province and center of the auto industry – will meet Canadian negotiators on Wednesday to express his concerns.

“You’re all hearing the rumours that we are hearing, that maybe they don’t want a deal. So we’re going down there to say that ‘You bloody well need to get a deal’,” Ontario trade minister Jim Wilson said on Monday.