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OTTAWA — The Canadian government is rejecting a push by the Trump administration to strike separate, bilateral trade deals with Canada and Mexico instead of pushing ahead with a stalled effort to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Ottawa’s refusal Tuesday to pursue a one-on-one trade deal with the United States came after Donald Trump’s top economic adviser said the president was serious about pursuing bilateral agreements with its NAFTA partners.

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“He is very seriously contemplating kind of a shift in the NAFTA negotiations,” Larry Kudlow, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, said Tuesday on the Fox News program “Fox and Friends.”

“His preference now — and he asked me to convey this — is to actually negotiate with Mexico and Canada separately. He prefers bilateral negotiations and he’s looking at two much different countries.”

Kudlow also said he relayed Trump’s message to a senior member of the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office.