trump that still see some wiggle room and hoping there s wiggle room. the president seemed to indicate that today in the oval office with specific regard to canada and mexico. he didn t really comments on what it would mean for the rest of the world. he s hearing from some advisers, not the peter navarros and secretary ross, but others opposed to this action that needs to be more targeted on the countries that the united states is concerned about in terms of a trade deficit with china and leave out european allies or others that have important trading relationships and important relationships on some many other levels with washington. shepard: part of the intrigue on this, there s solid reporting that the people around the president that would be involved in this process on a normal day weren t aware that he was about to make this pronouncement. this came out of nowhere for the people around the president.
the president is holding out, if we get a better deal on nafta and the current round of negotiations is underway on nafta, maybe we ll think about whether or not we do give exclusions to canada and mexico. interesting to point out, the last time there were tariffs with nafta, canada and mexico were exempt and there were probably 698 other exemptions that were granted. these punitive actions would be under section 232. the president said unless we have a steel and aluminum industry in this country, if we ever go to war with a nation providing steel for us, that will be problematic. the president wants to make sure that we preserve our industry here. definitely he s holding out a little bit of wiggle room to canada and mexico say you come to the table might not even
for many years. nafta has been a disaster. we re renegotiating nafta as i said i would. if we don t make a deal, i ll terminate nafta. shepard: president trump has repeatedly criticized nafta. that s the free trade agreement between the united states, canada and mexico. officials are in mexico city trying to renegotiate the terms of that agreement. last week the president announced new tariffs. 25% on steel, 10% on aluminum but nothing yet is on paper. on friday he tweeted that trade wars are good and easy to win. but today he said despite the fact that they re good and easy to win, he said i do not think we ll have a trade war. leaders in his own party and some major u.s. allies are warning against the tariffs, a spokesman for the speaker of the house, paul ryan, released a statement that said we re extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and
jim, i know it s a difficult issue, you know, clearly, but the president, if there was one issue he was clear about in 2016, it was this issue. one that really resinated with the trump movement, with the 2016 movement, it was getting control of the immigration system in general and specifically the border wall. with no campaign with no real plan to back up that he would get mexico to pay for it. i mean, what was that part of the promise based on particularly now more than a year into the presidency and mexico privately and publicly said they re not paying for it and take great offense to it. well, listen, there s a lot of ways to do that. tax remittances, tariff imports. a lot of ways to get it done but it s important for america to pay for it up front. we ll more than gain back what we spend on boaetter border enforcement because we spend so much right now on the poorest
paying for something they don t see as their responsibility. why beyond giving the president his satisfaction about the campaign promise, why good policy to keep at this and blowing up the relationship? sure. listen. it s a valid question. when it comes to mexico and china, a lot of countries in the world, america has been taken advantage of over trade policy or whatever. we played in the international arena, not just president obama, but president bush as well. we have operated as though we have a weak hand. instead of knowing we have the strong hand to play. that doesn t mean we bully people around, but let s negotiate like we have the hand we ve, which is strong. we have not done that in the past, and so i think what president trump is doing, which, to me, is very refreshing, is saying, we want to trade with the world, but we want it to be fair. we want to have borders that matter and immigration policy sensible for american workers, whether it s mexico, china, we are going to rec