The Trump administration is reporting progress on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations, particularly with Mexico. “The U.S. is making headway in its efforts to renegotiate NAFTA,” Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Tuesday at a meeting with the president and a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House, according to a Bloomberg report. At that meeting, Lighthizer also downplayed the likelihood of a U.S. withdrawal. Talks are going well, “particularly with the Mexicans,” he said.

Lighthizer’s warming tone on Mexico has been somewhat of a surprising turn of events given that relations between the United States and Mexico were frosty when the talks started last August as Trump insisted that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government would pay for a southern border wall.  In addition, Washington initiated the NAFTA negotiations last year by saying it wanted to address its gaping trade deficit with Mexico, while only seeking tweaks to the trading terms with Canada.

The United State’s second-biggest trade gap, after China, is with Mexico, with the deficit in goods expanding to $71.1 billion last year from $64.4 billion a year earlier.

During the Tuesday meeting on trade with Lighthizer and the lawmakers, President Trump struck out at Canada over trade. Canada has treated the U.S. “very unfairly,”  Trump said.

Lighthizer was critical of Canada at the last round of NAFTA negotiations in January. He dismissed a Canadian proposal on cars as vague and sparred with Ottawa over data describing two-way trade flows. He also criticized a trade case filed by Canada against the United States at the World Trade Organization as a “massive attack” on American trade law.

Less than a week later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in some of his most aggressive language yet, said he would rather walk away from NAFTA than accept a bad deal. Canada’s chief NAFTA negotiator Steve Verheul also took aim at the United States on Tuesday, saying that there has been “fairly limited progress overall” and that some American proposals would not even be good for the United States let alone the other countries. “We have seen limited U.S. flexibility even on fairly easy issues,” he said. “This is being driven to a large extent from the top, from the administration.”

Trump is increasingly hearing calls for caution, including from Republicans who support NAFTA. At a speech in Ottawa on Tuesday, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), who chairs the House Rules Committee, urged Canada to stand firm in NAFTA talks. “This is my message to you tonight — Canada should not yield to a bad deal,” he said, while also warning the Canadians not to include “extraneous” subjects into talks, which he did not specify. “We are not interested in a trade deal that would put you in second place and not be fair to Canada,” Sessions added.

Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said Tuesday that “pulling out of NAFTA would be a grave mistake” and that the Trump administration’s trade policy has been misguided. “In my district, trade equals jobs and economic opportunities and so I think having a protectionist mentality is not going to work,” he said.

Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada appointed by Trump, said in Ottawa Tuesday evening that Trump has a clear mandate for change but that the administration did not want to leave Canada behind. “We want an updated NAFTA to stimulate North America to be more competitive in the global economy,” Craft said.