Trump won't sell out US workers to get China's help on North Korea, says Wilbur Ross

Ross also said the White House is waiting for Congress to give the final OK to start the formal process of renegotiating NAFTA.

Addressing criticism over inaction on NAFTA and other campaign promises before Trump’s 100th day in office on Saturday, Ross said the president can’t be blamed when Congress is dragging its feet.

“What we’ve done in terms of trade is quite a few things,” Ross said, running down a litany of measures including last week’s push to install a new import tariff on Canadian lumber.

On Thursday, Ross made the case for the lumber tariff, and warned Canada over what Trump considers unfair trading practices that are hurting American dairy farmers.

Ross on Tuesday accused Mexico of taking advantage of NAFTA rules — saying Chinese goods dumped south of the border are finding their way to the U.S.

Addressing criticism over inaction NAFTA before Saturday’s 100th day in office, Ross said Trump can’t be blamed when Congress is dragging its feet.

“What we’ve done in terms of trade is quite a few things,” Ross said, running down a littany of measures including last week’s push to install a new import tariff Canadian lumber.

Despite bashing the North American Free Trade Agreement repeatedly during the presidential campaign, Trump last week said he’s going to try to renegotiate the deal.

The president, while reserving the right to change course, said he agreed not to dump the deal after talking with the leaders of Mexico and Canada in separate telephone calls.

I received calls from the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada asking to renegotiate NAFTA rather than terminate. I agreed…

…subject to the fact that if we do not reach a fair deal for all, we will then terminate NAFTA. Relationships are good-deal very possible!

“NAFTA is an ancient treaty,” Ross said on CNBC on Monday. “It’s decades old. Neither our economy nor the Mexican nor the Canadian economies are remotely similar to what they were back when the deal was done [in the 1990s]. There’s nothing in it really about the digital economy. There’s relatively little in it about the service economy. And in the sections that it does address some of those [they] are also clearly obsolete.”

Last week, Trump also authorized an investigation into whether a flood of aluminum imports into the U.S. from China and elsewhere jeopardize national security. The move is similar to one earlier in April on imported steel.