A top economic advisor to Donald Trump says Canada shouldn’t worry about the pending renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Blackstone Group Chairman Stephen Schwarzman, who heads up the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, told reporters in Calgary Monday that the United States takes an unusually positive view of Canada in terms of its trading relationship.

“I don’t think [Prime Minister Justin Trudeau] should be enormously worried,” Schwarzman said. “Canada is held in very high regard. We have balanced trade between the U.S. and Canada and that’s not the kind of situation where you should be worrying.”

Schwarzman added that the familiarity between the two countries built over the last 150 years means Canada is a stable, known element for the newly-minted administration.  

“Canada is very well-positioned for any discussions with the United States,” he said. “Americans have enormous admiration for Canada, and the amount of commercial linkages, cultural linkages are such that actually some people aren’t aware it’s not part of the United States some days. “There’s a sense of enormous connection with Canada.”

TRUDEAU’S CABINET MEETS

Trudeau began a two-day retreat with his cabinet on Monday, focused mainly on the best approach to take with new U.S. President Donald Trump, whose vow to renegotiate NAFTA could damage Canada's economy.

Trump said on Sunday he plans talks soon on the three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement, under which Canada and Mexico send the majority of their exports to the United States. Trump was expected to sign an executive order saying he intended to renegotiate the free trade agreement as early as Monday, NBC News reported, citing an unidentified White House official.

The two-day cabinet meeting in Calgary started at 9 a.m. Mountain Time (11 a.m. ET), and is the first chance for cabinet to discuss U.S. relations since Trump was sworn in.

“We will continue to work with the United States, seeking opportunities to improve our economic outcomes by enhancing our mutual trading relationship,” Finance Minister Bill Morneau told reporters in Calgary on Monday.

Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland also spoke to reporters ahead of the cabinet meeting in Calgary.

“We are very happy to be members of what I believe – what I think Canadians know to be – the very mutually beneficial NAFTA partnership. But, of course, our relationship with the United States is primarily a bilateral relationship,” said Freeland when asked if Canada would be prepared to pursue a bilateral trade arrangement with the U.S. if it doesn’t serve Ottawa’s interests to include Mexico in the negotiations.  

Maryscott Greenwood, senior advisor of the Canadian American Business Council joins BNN to discuss Canada-U.S. trade relations as NAFTA talks take center stage.

KUSHNER TO VISIT CALGARY

In wake of the cabinet meeting, a top adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with advisers to Trudeau.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, will travel to Calgary, Alberta this week, as Trudeau’s cabinet meets, according to a source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.

Trump's vow to renegotiate the key trade agreement, which also includes Mexico, could sideswipe Canada's export-driven economy, and the visit by Kushner underlines the ties developing between the Trudeau and Trump camps.

Canadian officials, trying to persuade the new U.S. administration that focusing on Canada makes no sense, given how closely the economies are linked, say the Trump team is most concerned about large U.S. 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 U.S. measures aimed at Mexico.

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 support by positioning himself as a fiscal hawk.

--With files from Reuters' David Ljunggren