White House trade adviser Peter Navarro offered the Trump administration's most biting response to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week over their tariff dispute. President Trump had announced new tariffs on steel and aluminum, explaining that Canada and European nations had taken advantage of the trade process. Trudeau and other world leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron pushed back, rejecting the notion that they were a national security threat to the United States.
At the G-7 summit, Trudeau doubled down and said, "Canadians will not be pushed around." He added that Canada will "move forward with retaliatory measures" on July 1 against the U.S. That warning is apparently what set Navarro off.
“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,” Navarro said on Fox News Sunday of Trudeau's "stunt" press conference.
Navarro now regrets the "inappropriate" language he used, he admitted at a Wall Street Journal event on Tuesday.
"In conveying that message I used language that was inappropriate and basically lost the power of that message," Navarro said. "I own that, that was my mistake, my words."
Navarro was not the only Trump cabinet member to sound off on Trudeau. Chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow, who is currently recovering from a heart attack, accused the Canadian leader of betraying the U.S.
"He really kind of stabbed us in the back," Kudlow said, echoing Navarro.
As for Trump's own response, he predicted that Trudeau's remarks are going to cost Canada "a lot of money."
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