Republicans are blaming Canada for Trump's trade war

Republicans back Trump in his trade war with Canada

After meeting with U.S. trade rep on Capitol Hill, GOP lawmakers defend president's tactics

Republican members of Congress are publicly backing U.S. President Donald Trump in his trade war with Canada and blaming Prime Minister Mark Carney's government for walking away from negotiations.

Dozens of GOP House members gathered on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a closed-door meeting with Trump's point man on tariffs, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

While some Republicans are quietly concerned that an escalation of costly tariffs could worsen their re-election prospects in the midterms in November, those who spoke with CBC News after meeting Greer generally expressed support for the president's trade strategy.

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Texas Republican August Pfluger praised Trump for bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. and pinned blame for the trade war on Ottawa.

"It's a war that is perpetuated by Canada," Pfluger told CBC News. "The Canadians need to get reasonable. They've taken advantage of the United States for a long time."

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Brian Mast, a five-term Congressman from Florida, also criticized Canada for the breakdown in trade talks.

"They were given the best possible deal, more generous than anybody else across the globe, and it's something that they turned their back on," Mast told CBC News.

When Greer emerged from the meeting, he did not respond to reporters' questions about the state of negotiations with Canada.

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Meanwhile at the White House, Trump gave no sign of shifting his position that Canada has long taken advantage of the U.S. on trade.

Trump told reporters that one of his biggest grievances against Canada is the limits it puts on U.S. bank operations north of the border.

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"They basically don't allow banks of America to be in Canada, that's sort of emblematic of the way they treat us," Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon.

"Canada has all of its major banks here, and we're their biggest source of income, far bigger than they are in Canada," he said.

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On Capitol Hill, the sole Republican who raised concerns about the impact of the trade war on voters was Ralph Norman, who represents a South Carolina district.

"What I hear in South Carolina is affordability," said Norman. "It all goes into affordability, whether it's this [trade war with Canada], whether it's tariffs, whether it's housing, gas."

He says Greer expressed willingness to address how tariffs are affecting each state.

"The concerns, they were real," Norman said. "I think the White House will be listening."

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Although polling suggests Trump's tariffs are deeply unpopular, other Congressional Republicans lined up to defend the president's trade war with Canada, in some cases repeating his arguments almost word-for-word.

Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison said it would not be a smart move for Canada to levy counter-tariffs on U.S. exports, as Carney has threatened to do next week.

"We're the economic powerhouse obviously compared to [Canada]," Burlison said. "I think Canada needs the United States more than we need them."

Mike Crawley is a correspondent for CBC News, based in Washington. He began his career as a newspaper reporter in B.C., spent six years as a freelance journalist in various parts of Africa, then joined the CBC in 2005. Mike reported on Ontario politics for 15 years. He was born and raised in Saint John, N.B.

with files from Katie Nicholson and Louis Blouin