'It's almost like they tried to derail the negotiations,' said one Canadian government source
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney told Canadians that he ended trade talks with the Americans because the gap between the two countries was simply “too wide in recent days” to strike a deal.
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In reality, however, sources say, it was really just one late-to-the-party American negotiator, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who scuppered the talks with a series of last-minute demands on Canada.
Those new demands, which reportedly included the U.S. gaining control over which other countries Canada would be permitted to do business with, left the Canadian side with the impression that it had little choice but to walk away.
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“It’s almost like they tried to derail the negotiations,” said one Canadian government source.
Carney also hinted in his press conference on Saturday at “differences” among the various characters in the Trump administration that came to light when negotiators got down to the finer details of the deal.
“In these last few days, we were drilling down on specific issues where that might have papered over the differences in the administration, if there were indeed differences,” said Carney.
A few days after the talks fell apart, Canadians may be asking: Who is Howard Lutnick?
To understand how he became a cabinet minister for U.S. President Donald Trump, it’s noteworthy how much of Lutnick’s biography, and even personality, overlaps with his boss, almost certainly more than anybody else in that cabinet.
Like Trump, Lutnick is a New Yorker, born to a Jewish family on Long Island in 1961, who went on to become a Manhattan billionaire. Public sources, such as Forbes, have pegged Lutnick’s net worth at more than US$7 billion.
