Washington (CNN) Peter Navarro, a White House trade adviser, apologized Tuesday after saying "there's a special place in hell" for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is in a trade dispute with President Donald Trump.

"In conveying that message, I used language that was inappropriate and basically lost the power of that message," Navarro said at the Wall Street Journal's annual CFO Network conference . "I own that. That was my mistake, those were my words."

Asked if he was apologizing for the comments, Navarro said, "yeah, absolutely."

Following the G7 summit in Quebec, Navarro told "Fox News Sunday" that "there's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door."

He added, "Those are my words, but they're the sentiment that was on Air Force One after that."

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