WASHINGTON — Canada and the United States will not reach a trade deal by President Donald Trump’s deadline of Friday, Canadian officials and U.S. officials said on Friday afternoon.The talks will resume on Wednesday, the officials said. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland was scheduled to speak to the media later Friday afternoon.The two countries had held a series of meetings over four days to try to hammer out their differences on a new North American Free Trade Agreement. But the talks stalled over a series of significant policy differences, and they were affected by a Friday controversy over secret inflammatory remarks the Star revealed President Donald Trump had made about the negotiations on Thursday.Read more:Bombshell leak to Toronto Star upends NAFTA talks: In secret ‘so insulting’ remarks, Trump says he isn’t compromising at all with CanadaAfter the talks ended Friday, Trump sent an official notification to Congress that he intends to enter into a trade agreement with Mexico — “and with Canada if it is willing, in a timely manner, to meet the high standards for free, fair and reciprocal trade contained therein.”Trade experts said Friday was not a deadline of any real significance to Canada, since the notification can be amended any time in September to make clear that Canada is part of the deal. The notification is intended to immediately start the mandatory 90-day countdown before an agreement can be formally signed. The U.S. wanted to trigger the countdown soon enough so that the deal could be signed by outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who will be succeeded by left-wing populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at the beginning of December. At an event in Charlotte, Trump said, as he did on Twitter, that he was not unhappy that the Star published the remarks he had made “off the record” to Bloomberg News in an interview on Thursday. Trump said in the Bloomberg interview that ...
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