U.S. President Donald Trump is once again dangling the threat of withdrawing from his country’s free trade deal with Canada and Mexico, even though his trade officials are in talks on renewing it. 

Speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said he is “not looking to renew” the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) when it comes up for a review on July 1, six years after it took effect. 

While the agreement doesn’t actually expire until 2036, any country can withdraw from it by giving six months’ notice. 

Trump signed the deal — known as USMCA south of the border — during his first term as president.

“USMCA did one thing that I loved. After six years, it comes up for renewal. I don’t know that I’m going to renew it,” he said Wednesday, and went on to repeat his long-held complaints that the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada or Mexico.

“It was a great deal for one reason. It gave the right to terminate,” he said. “It was very important that we be able to do that. So we’re talking to them. We’ll see if we do something.”

CUSMA is crucial to the Canadian economy because it covers some $1.3 trillion in cross-border trade with the U.S. and shields roughly 90 per cent of Canada’s exports from Trump’s tariffs.

When Trump signed the deal in 2018, he boasted of it as “the most modern, up-to-date, and balanced trade agreement in the history of our country.”

Canada, Mexico want deal renewed

The text of CUSMA offers each country the opportunity to extend the agreement for another 16 years or launch a series of annual reviews.

Canada and Mexico both formally declared they want the deal extended, but have also said they’re prepared to negotiate improvements. Trump’s top trade official, Jamieson Greer, has not made the U.S. position public.

However, the U.S. has already begun formal negotiations with Mexico about renewal, and has scheduled two more rounds of talks next week and in late July.

Separately from the Mexico talks, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Canada’s chief negotiator Janice Charette met with Greer and his team in Washington last week.

While LeBlanc didn’t provide details, he said Canada put proposals on the table to address what he called “long-standing issues that the United States has raised with us.”