The Trump administration intends to maintain tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Tuesday as the U.S. launches negotiations to revamp the North American free trade pact. The U.S. has "significant" trade issues with Canada, Greer told a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington ahead of bilateral negotiations with Mexico that exclude the northern U.S. neighbor. "The U.S. is going to have tariffs," Greer said. "I mean, even with somebody like Mexico, or other countries that are in our own hemisphere, we're going to have tariffs as long as we have a giant trade deficit." His comments that the six-year-old U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will not continue as a tariff-free trade pact echo comments he made privately last month to industry executives in Mexico - that auto and steel tariffs will remain in place under the revamped USMCA. U.S. and Mexican negotiators are due to meet this week in Mexico City to launch the first formal negotiating rounds, covering revised regional rules of origin and economic security. Greer, who was interviewed by former Obama administration USTR Michael Froman, who now heads CFR, said he wants to see the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico reduced, and for Mexico to raise its own tariffs on non-North American imports.