WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump says he turned down a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau because of his unhappiness with Canada’s dairy tariffs and Canada’s stance at the NAFTA negotiating table — but Trudeau’s office says the prime minister never requested a meeting at all.

Trump also appeared to take a rare shot at Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s chief representative in the trade negotiations, and repeated his threat to impose tariffs on Canadian-made cars, saying that this would be even “better” than making a trade deal with Canada.

“We are very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We don’t like their representative very much,” Trump said at a Wednesday news conference, although he did not specify who he was talking about.

“They’ve taken advantage — I love Canada, by the way ... so many friends ... but that has nothing to do with this.”

Asked whether he turned down a meeting with Trudeau, Trump said flatly, “Yeah, I did.” Asked why, he said, “Because his tariffs are too high and he doesn’t seem to want to move and I’ve told him forget about it.

“And frankly we’re thinking about just taxing cars coming in from Canada. That’s the motherlode. That’s the big one,” he said.

Trudeau spokesperson Cameron Ahmad said in an email: “No meeting was requested. We don’t have any comment beyond that.”

Trump has been known to make false and dubious claims about his interactions with Canada, appearing to relish opportunities to portray himself as the dominant figure in the relationship with Trudeau. He appeared angry during much of the lengthy news conference, during which he aggressively defended Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh against allegations of sexual assault.

Regardless, the president’s comments underscored the intense animosity he now feels toward the prime minister and his government.

Trump took a far friendlier stance toward North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, whom he praised at length Wednesday. Asked why he planned to hold a second major meeting with Kim soon after the first, Trump responded: “Because he’d like it.”

Trump nonetheless said that there was still “a good chance” of a trade deal with Canada” — although he said he would not concede to “anything near” the kind of deal Canada wants. He also said a three-country deal would be renamed “USMC” for U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The two men had a brief interaction at a United Nations luncheon on Tuesday, shaking hands when Trudeau approached Trump as he read over notes for a speech. Trump did not stand up.

Trudeau said Wednesday that people should not “read into” the briefness of the exchange, noting that, like many other UN interactions, it was “quick but cordial.”

“I have continued to engage regularly with the president. We had a very good call just last week. We continue to have regular conversations whenever necessary, whenever we want to,” Trudeau said.

“There are all sorts of opportunities for me to speak to President Trump, and that was not the time.”

Trump had been rumoured to be unhappy with Freeland. Canada’s foreign affairs minister has taken pains to avoid criticizing Trump upon emerging from NAFTA negotiating meetings, but the White House was said to be annoyed by a speech she gave in Washington in June. Upon receiving Foreign Policy magazine’s Diplomat of the Year award, Freeland criticized Trump’s “mano-a-mano approach” to international relations.

Trump’s renewed threat on auto tariffs came on the same day that Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., David MacNaughton, said Canada is insisting on protection from such tariffs as part of a NAFTA deal. Without such protection, he said, the agreement would not be useful.

“There are things where, basically, we’re just not prepared to give in because it would really render the agreement meaningless,” MacNaughton said in a public interview with Politico in Toronto. “I mean, if you can’t resolve disputes in a fair and balanced way, then what’s the use of the agreement? If you can’t have some curb on the arbitrary use of tariffs under the guise of national security, with a member of NORAD and somebody who is your closest defence partner, then I don’t think it’s much of an agreement.”

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MacNaughton made the comments in response to a question about whether Canada might simply call Trump’s bluff and make a take-it-or-leave-it offer, daring the president to carry out his tariff threat. MacNaughton said the government would not be “playing chicken with the future of the Canadian economy” in such a manner, but that it has positions it cannot surrender.

Trump has used an obscure “national security” provision of U.S. trade law to impose tariffs on imports of Canadian steel and aluminum. He has threatened to use the same provision to impose tariffs on imports of Canadian cars, a move that would likely do much more damage to Canada.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, Canadian officials had previously said they were pushing for tariff protection as part of the deal. MacNaughton was the first to say publicly that a deal would be bad without such protection.

Trudeau did not respond directly on Wednesday when asked at a United Nations news conference if Canada needs an “ironclad commitment” that Trump will not impose auto tariffs. He said Trump has told him directly, “a few times,” that “if we renegotiate NAFTA, if we get to a NAFTA deal, there will be no need to worry about these other things.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday that the steel and aluminum tariffs would not be addressed until after a NAFTA agreement is reached, although he had originally wanted them to be part of the NAFTA deal.

Joseph Galimberti, president of the Canadian Steel Producers Association, said that not resolving the tariff issue as part of the broader agreement would be a “missed opportunity.”

Canada is facing a U.S. deadline to make a trade deal by the end of the month. Lighthizer said Tuesday that the administration will immediately submit the text of a U.S.-Mexico deal to Congress if Canada does not sign on by then.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg cited three sources as saying the U.S. plans to publish the text on Friday, two days prior to the previously announced deadline. But that would not necessarily mean Canada would be left behind for good: Lighthizer said Tuesday that negotiations with Canada would continue.

“We’re certainly not going to give up,” he said.

It is possible that Congress, which strongly prefers a trilateral agreement, would allow Canada to be added to the U.S.-Mexico text at a later date.

Asked if a good deal for Canada is possible even if the U.S. does move forward this week with Mexico alone, Trudeau said, “We will keep working on a broad range of alternatives. A broad range of paths are ahead of us. We’re going to keep focusing on trying to get to the right deal for Canadians.”

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