Members of the Trump administration would rant at their Canadian counterparts during the renegotiation of NAFTA about the frequency of leaks that appeared in the press.
The Americans insisted those trade talks be allowed to unfold discreetly at the negotiating table. They avoided news conferences, rarely spoke to reporters and let Donald Trump’s occasional ill-tempered tweets speak for the U.S.
A new memoir lays out the U.S. perspective on those closed-door talks.
The book by presidential son-in-law and senior staffer Jared Kushner earned the literary equivalent of a ritualized execution in a vividly unflattering New York Times book review that mocked its wooden writing and wilful blindness to the seedier aspects of the Trump legacy.
The book does fill in some gaps on a significant historical event for Canada: it describes the false starts in the trade talks, frustrations with the Canadians and how the deal wound up with two tongue-twisting acronyms for a name.
Breaking History, Kushner’s book, describes a method to Trump’s madness, crediting the president’s sporadic threats to cancel NAFTA with creating valuable pressure on Canada and Mexico.
It also acknowledges the madness in the method.
An angry tweet from Trump stalled talks before they even began. In early 2017, the North American countries planned an amicable announcement of new trade negotiations at a three-country event at the White House.
When Kushner called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff to confirm plans, Katie Telford asked whether it was still on: “Didn’t you see his tweets this morning?”
In fact, Kushner had not seen his father-in-law’s public threat to cancel meetings with the Mexican leader unless Mexico paid for a new border wall; the meeting was cancelled.
Later in the day, he said Trump realized that might have been a mistake and half-jokingly told Kushner: “I can’t make this too easy for you.”
Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, both held senior White House jobs despite being newcomers to politics. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
The tweets, then the drama
Months later, there was another bumpy launch. Trump asked staff to draw up documents to terminate the original NAFTA.
Trump was actually undecided about whether to go through with it when someone — Kushner suspects it was White House trade skeptic Peter Navarro — leaked the news to the Politico website, hoping to pressure the president to do it.
Aspects of what happened next are already public knowledge: Trudeau and his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Peña Nieto, called Trump, pleading with him not to, warning it would cause chaos, and after a frantic few hours, everyone agreed to launch renegotiation talks.
What’s less well known is that Trump engineered those calls, according to the book.
What had happened was pro-trade Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue had already persuaded Trump not to cancel NAFTA; he showed Trump a large map and explained it would crush farmers in the rural areas that support him.
Trump needed a face-saving way to back down from his threat.
The solution? Get those foreign leaders on the phone to plead with him; Kushner called Telford and a Mexican colleague and said their bosses should urgently phone Trump.
“Sensing that Trump was looking for a solution, I [said]: ‘What if I get President Peña Nieto and Prime Minister Trudeau to call right now and ask you not to cancel NAFTA, and then you can put out a statement that says you will give them time to negotiate,'” Kushner wrote.
“The immediate crisis abated.”
That was in April 2017. Formal talks began later that summer. After months of negotiations, the Americans grew increasingly annoyed at Canada ‘s alleged unwillingness to budge on key issues.
Kushner said he enlisted billionaire businessman Steve Schwarzman to call Trudeau and tell him the Canadians were taking a serious risk: “They are playing chicken with the wrong guy,” he said he told Schwarzman.
He said the businessman called him back a few hours later: “Trudeau, he said, ‘Got the message loud and clear.'”
A Canadian team flew down to Washington, and Telford says there were three impediments to a deal: U.S. steel tariffs on Canada, the need for a dispute mechanism, and dairy.
Chrystia Freeland is shown speaking to reporters outside the U.S. trade office in 2018. U.S. officials fumed at Canada for stalling talks and leaking confidential negotiating details to reporters. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
U.S. team erupts at Freeland
The book describes how U.S. officials grew annoyed in the final bargaining sessions with Canada’s lead politician in the talks, Chrystia Freeland.
It’s been reported that one American erupted at Freeland for slow-walking during those sessions, losing his patience when she started discussing whaling rights for Inuit people.
The book places the U.S. narrative on the public record.
“An increasingly frustrating series of negotiations” is how Kushner described it. He said Freeland would read notes scribbled in ink on her hand, then let her officials spar with U.S. trade chief Robert Lighthizer over the technical details.
“All the while [she was] refusing to commit to any substantive changes,” Kushner wrote.
“Following this theatre, she would walk to the steps of the USTR [U.S. Trade Representative] building and hold an outdoor press conference, uttering platitudes like, ‘I get paid in Canadian dollars, not U.S. dollars.'”
At this point, the U.S. prepared for two outcomes: a Mexico-U.S. deal or a three-country one. Kushner says Peña Nieto also told Trudeau his representatives were moving too slowly and that Mexico would sign.
Then, on Sept. 26, Trump trashed Freeland at a media conference and threatened to punish Canadian autos with tariffs.
Kushner writes: “Less than an hour later, the Canadians gave us an offer in writing. After 16 months of stalling, they were finally ready to talk specifics.”
Yet when he showed the Canadian offer to Lighthizer, the U.S. trade chief said: “This is all rubbish! They don’t want to make a deal.” Kushner said he suggested calling Telford to explain why it was unworkable: “‘No,’ Lighthizer shot back.”
After a deal finally came together, the North American leaders officially signed it at a G20 meeting in Argentina in late 2018. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
‘I want it to be called the USMCA’
After meetings the next morning, however, Kushner called Telford, and they settled some longstanding irritants. Trudeau’s chief of staff called back an hour later and said: “The prime minister is going to take the deal.”
With the deal done, Trump made one final request.
“I want it to be called the USMCA, like [the] U.S. Marine Corps.”
Freeland and the rest of the Canadian government have refused to use that name, continuing to call it “the new NAFTA,” or by the acronym CUSMA.
Kushner credits the president’s style for producing a better deal for the U.S.: the new agreement sets caps on low-wage auto production in Mexico, lets slightly more U.S. dairy into Canada and forces once-a-decade reviews of the pact.
“Negotiating a trade deal is like a game of chicken, with real consequences. The other side has to believe you are going to jump off a cliff. We succeeded because Trump was absolutely prepared to terminate NAFTA — and Mexico and Canada knew it,” he writes. “His style made many people uncomfortable, including his allies in Congress, foreign leaders and his own advisers, but it led to unprecedented results.”
One Canadian official involved in the talks said Ottawa knew exactly what it was doing by stalling: Canada was aware the U.S. wanted a deal quickly, before late 2018.
Canadian official: We intentionally drained the clock
Trump’s team hoped to conclude talks while Republicans still controlled Congress before the 2018 midterms and before a new Mexican president took office.
“The truth is we were draining the clock,” said one Canadian involved. “Trudeau never instructed us to make a final deal. He always said [get] the right deal or no deal.”
The Canadian government was more circumspect when asked for an on-the-record comment about Kushner’s book: in an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Freeland said the Canadian team worked hard for a good deal and was vindicated by its firm approach.
The juicier parts of Kushner’s book include chronicles of rampant back-stabbing and turf wars in the Trump White House.
Steve Bannon, left, is shown with Kushner, right, whose book chronicles the backstabbing and infighting that were rampant in the Trump White House. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
In particular, he portrays ex-aide Steve Bannon as a volatile schemer who set out to get Kushner fired by leaking unflattering half-truths about him to the press.
He writes that Bannon dishonestly brands himself as the keeper of the Trumpian ideological flame and Kushner as a liberal interloper when, in reality, Bannon joined the Trump team late in the 2016 campaign, long after his policies were set.
Sidestepping Jan. 6
The historic events of Jan. 6, 2021, barely merit a mention. Kushner says he was travelling back from the Middle East and didn’t realize until late in the day the seriousness of the storming of the Capitol.
Key parts of the Trump legacy are virtually ignored in Kushner’s book, such as his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol, seen here. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
The New York Times review assailed Kushner’s book as self-servingly selective, its prose soulless, sidestepping the key unflattering details of Trump’s political epitaph.
“Kushner almost entirely ignores the chaos, the alienation of allies, the breaking of laws and norms, the flirtations with dictators, the comprehensive loss of America’s moral leadership, and so on,” said the review.
“This book is like a tour of a once majestic 18th-century wooden house, now burned to its foundations, that focuses solely on, and rejoices in, what’s left amid the ashes: the two singed bathtubs, the gravel driveway and the mailbox. Kushner’s fealty to Trump remains absolute.”
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
