U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has given the most detailed account yet of how Canada's trade talks with the Trump administration fell apart, and the picture he paints is damning of Prime Minister Mark Carney's leadership.

Sheila Gunn Reid and Tamara Ugolini broke down Lutnick's version of events on Thursday's Rebel Roundup.

According to Lutnick, a deal had been reached, something backed up by a post on social media from President Donald Trump. Then, at 4 p.m. on a Friday — with signing scheduled for that evening — Canada's negotiators called and asked for heavy trucks to be added to the deal.

Lutnick said no. "It's Friday at 4:00. We're signing at six or seven. There's no new topic you're coming up with now." He then asked them directly: are you trying to blow this up? "The answer was, and I quote, 'I'm not allowed to say that.'"

Lutnick was direct about the motivation for Canada's negotiating team to walk away from the table at the last minute.

"They decided, for political reasons domestically in Canada, they'd rather fight with Donald Trump — even if it's bad for the economy of Canada — for their political ambition to get certain elections."

The commerce secretary went further, detailing how a separatist party is leading in Quebec's provincial polls while a referendum on independence is occurring in Alberta. 

"This is the Canadian Liberal Party using their economy to get themselves elected even if they're selling their own citizens down the river," Lutnick said, while suggesting American negotiators had no issues with French-language concerns.  

Sheila said Lutnick's assessment of the collapse in talks was "100% correct," adding it didn't make her "unpatriotic to say so." There was no other rational explanation for why Canada would walk away from a deal with its largest trading partner, she continued, unless it was motivated by politics.

A report from the National Post added another detail to the failed negotiation: a Canadian official said the country's negotiators pulled out in part because Ontario Premier Doug Ford was "not on board" with the agreement due to a concession that would have seen American alcohol returned to provincial liquor stores.

"Ontario taxpayers have already paid for that liquor," she said. "To dump it out and then pull it off the shelves is just a slap in the face to your own people."

Trump separately lamented that Canada is harder to deal with than Communist China.

Tamara pushed back on the president's claim that the U.S. has more natural resources than Canada — noting that Canada has vast untapped critical minerals, oil, gas, and forestry.

"Canada could be and does have strong leverage in all of this," she said, "and we're just served by the most incompetent, inept leaders and political class that doesn't care."

Sheila agreed: "We are rich in natural resources, rich in oil and gas wealth. We just can't develop it the way the United States can, and we will be left in the dust."

Rebel Roundup airs Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 11 a.m. MT / 1 p.m. ET.

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