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Donald Trump aide Jared Kushner scraps plan for Canada visit: Canada official

The meeting was supposedly scrapped due to logistical problems.

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US President Donald Trump (L) congratulates his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner after the swearing-in of senior staff in the East Room of the White House on January 22, 2017 in Washington, DC
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A senior aide to US President Donald Trump has scrapped plans to visit Canada for talks with officials in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's team, a Canadian government source said on Monday.

The source said the planned visit by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner had hit logistical problems. A separate source had earlier said Kushner intended to meet Trudeau aides on the margins of a cabinet retreat in Calgary. 

Trump said on Sunday he plans talks soon on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), under which Canada and Mexico send the majority of their exports to the United States (US).

Canadian officials, trying to persuade the new US administration that focusing on Canada makes no sense, given how closely the economies are linked, say the Trump team is most concerned about large US trade deficits with China and Mexico. "They haven't said anything specific about any real problems that they have with us," said David MacNaughton, Canada's ambassador to Washington and a key player on the NAFTA file.

The danger, he told reporters on Sunday, is that Canada could suffer collateral damage from US measures aimed at Mexico. Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive officer of investment firm Blackstone Group LP, has been invited to address the retreat on Monday. Schwarzman chairs a panel of business leaders who give Trump advice.

The challenge of dealing with Washington comes at a sensitive time for Trudeau, who is facing probes into a vacation he took with the Aga Khan as well as his centrist Liberal Party's fundraising activities.

He is also under fire from Kevin O'Leary, a television personality running for the leadership of the opposition right-leaning Conservative Party, who says Trudeau is too weak to stand up to Trump. O'Leary complains that Trudeau, who came to power in 2015 promising to run a few years of modest budget deficits to fund infrastructure projects, has increased spending so much that finance ministry officials predict shortfalls for decades.

While polls show the Liberals well ahead of their rivals in the run-up to the 2019 election, pollster Nik Nanos of Nanos Research says O'Leary could eat into Liberal.

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