Prime Minister Mark Carney stepped into the lion’s den Tuesday for his first face-to-face with his U.S. counterpart — a high-stakes meeting that appeared to go well with compliments exchanged on both sides as President Donald Trump conceded his dream of annexing Canada is likely off the table.
Trump warmly welcomed Carney to the Oval Office, saying the two will discuss some “tough points” during their meeting but he said Carney is “a very talented, very good person” and the former central banker deserved to win the recent federal election.
Trump signalled from the start he wasn’t going to give Carney a rough ride like he did with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this year when a similar meeting descended into chaos — a scenario Canadian officials were dreading.
“We had another little blow-up with somebody else,” Trump joked. “That was much different — this is a very friendly conversation.”
Asked by reporters if he’s still serious about Canada becoming part of the U.S., Trump said he was but acknowledged it’s likely a non-starter.
U.S President Donald Trump, sitting next to Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House on Tuesday, returned to his notion of Canada as the 51st state after a question from a reporter, calling the border artificial and saying it would ‘really be a wonderful marriage.’ Carney dismissed the idea, again, saying Canada will never — ever — be for sale.
“It takes two to tango,” the president said, adding “as a real estate developer at heart” he would love to see the U.S. span from the Gulf Coast to the Arctic Circle. “But we’re not going to be discussing that.”
“I do feel it’s much better for Canada,” he said, claiming taxes would be lower and defence would be better if the two counties came together as one.
Carney diplomatically shot down Trump’s talk, saying that as a property developer he should know “there are some places that are never for sale.”
“Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it’s not for sale and it won’t be for sale ever,” Carney said.
Still, the president held out hope it might happen one day. He said “never say never,” about uniting the two countries.
In response, Carney said: “Never, never, never, never, never” as reporters shouted questions at the president.
While respectful of Carney, Trump suggested he is not willing to budge on his punishing tariffs that already prompted job losses in Canada and a drop in southbound exports.
Asked why he won’t change course, the protectionist president said: “Just the way it is.”
The president has imposed fentanyl-related tariffs on goods that are not compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) to punish Canada for supposedly lax border security. The country is also grappling with Trump’s “Section 232” tariffs on Canadian-made steel, aluminum and autos, with some exceptions.
Carney pushed back at Trump’s assertion the tariffs are here to stay, saying the levies are a violation of CUSMA. “Some things are going to have change,” Carney said.
Despite some of Trump’s past heated rhetoric about Canada, the U.S. president was complimentary of the country throughout the press event as he sat side-by-side with Carney.
“We’re going to be friends with Canada. Canada is a very special place. I love Canada, I have a lot of respect for the Canadians,” he said, touting his friendship with hockey great Wayne Gretzky as a sign that he means what he says about the northern neighbour.
Trump praised Carney’s election victory and seemed to take credit for it in part, saying the Liberal Party’s turnaround after being down in the polls for the better part of two years was “one of greatest comebacks in the history of politics.”
Trump also signalled he’s willing to renegotiate CUSMA, saying “it’s good for all countries,” but there needs to be some unspecified tweaks — or they may have to do away with it altogether.
“We’re going to work on some subtle changes, maybe,” Trump said, while acknowledging there’s nothing concrete on the table at this stage. “We’re dealing more with concepts right now.”
Carney agreed that the existing trilateral trade deal will “be the basis for a broader negotiation,” and those talks will start today.
While the meeting started out on friendly ground, the president drifted into denigrating the Canadian economy with his threats to somehow do away with the country’s auto industry.
Trump also repeated his oft-cited falsehood that the U.S. somehow “subsidizes” this country by $200 billion a year.
The U.S. trade deficit with Canada — which is largely driven by cheap oil imports — is much smaller than that. A trade deficit is not a subsidy. It just means the U.S. buys more goods from Canada than this country does from them.
And despite trade data that shows the U.S. relies on Canadian goods — notably importing some four million barrels of oil a day — Trump said that he doesn’t need “anything” from Canada.
At times, it appeared Carney was struggling to interject and he raised his hand to talk as Trump spoke at length about unrelated topics, touching on California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Washington Capitals, former prime minister Justin Trudeau and teasing some sort of “great” upcoming announcement that’s “not necessarily on trade.”
Working lunch in the West Wing
Next on Carney’s agenda is a working lunch with Trump in the storied Roosevelt Room in the West Wing.
Both will be accompanied by a cadre of high-level officials. Expected beside Trump is Vice-President JD Vance, a critic of Canada like his boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, — who blasted Canada yesterday as a “socialist regime” — and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, among others.
Prime Minister Mark Carney was greeted at the White House by U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, ahead of a high-stakes meeting that is expected to focus on trade and tariffs.
Carney will have International Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Public Safety Minister David McGuinty and Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, with him along with top bureaucrats.
A senior Canadian government official, speaking to CBC News on background ahead of the meeting, said this is the first of what will likely be more meetings between the leaders as the two sides start the work of crafting a new partnership.
That lunch meeting, beyond the glare of the TV lights, is where the work of getting acquainted and improving relations will begin, the official said.
The two sides will start the work of crafting a new economic and security arrangement now that the prime minister has said the last one is “over.”
Carney was setting the bar low even before this meeting began — saying Canadians shouldn’t expect to see any “white smoke,” a nod to what will happen when a Pope is chosen in Rome, after this sit-down.
Laura Dawson is a Canada-U.S. relations expert and the executive director of the Future Borders Coalition.
She said there may not be a satisfactory end to these trade tensions until Carney and his team broker a new trade agreement with Trump. The current CUSMA deal is up for review next year.
Mark Carney’s first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday comes with ‘significant risks’ for the prime minister, says international trade lawyer and former Canadian diplomat Lawrence Herman. Herman says Trump’s 51st state threat is sure to come up and the question will be how Carney deals with it.
While it may be painful to endure tariffs until then, Dawson said it’s in Canada’s best interest not to rush into a deal.
“Right now, Trump feels like he has all the cards. If we settle very, very quickly, it wouldn’t be a good deal for Canada. You only get sharp and quick deals if the other side gives in,” she said in an interview.
Carney is an experienced global player and he will have been well briefed by the diplomats in Washington about a possible standoff, Dawson said.
The president is wedded to tariffs as a revenue-generating tool and a way to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and it may be hard to move him from that position, said Everett Eissenstat, who served as deputy director of Trump’s National Economic Council during the president’s first term.
“It’s unlikely that the relationship will be sorted out within a single meeting, but it’s certainly a good start,” he said.
