WASHINGTON — Canada’s top economic diplomat personally lobbied President Trump’s advisers this week to remove American tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports and warned that the levies could jeopardize that country’s ratification of the rewritten North American Free Trade Agreement.

Bill Morneau, Canada’s finance minister, said in an interview with The New York Times that the United States appeared unwilling to budge on the tariffs despite continued pleas to remove them. Canada has argued that the tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum are harmful to both countries’ economies and make little sense given the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement reached late last year.

“We continue to advocate for the complete removal of the tariffs,” Mr. Morneau said on Thursday afternoon on the sidelines of the annual spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The United States and Canada have had continuing negotiations about the removal of the tariffs. One option that the United States has proposed is rolling back the tariffs in exchange for Canada agreeing to quotas on its steel and aluminum exports to the United States.