Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. Mr. Carney says he hasn't spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump since trade talks were called off.Edgar Su/Reuters
Donald Trump said Monday he won’t be meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney for some time, after a falling out over an Ontario government TV ad that criticized the U.S. President’s protectionist tariffs.
But the Prime Minister, speaking to reporters at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Kuala Lumpur on the same day, said he had arranged a meeting with another counterpart: Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Mr. Carney said he plans to meet Mr. Xi this week at a different summit, in South Korea. The meeting is set to happen only days after the Prime Minister told an Ottawa crowd that his government would double exports to non-U.S. markets over the next decade.
Mr. Trump broke off trade talks with Canada last week, citing the TV ad. After it aired during Game 1 of the World Series, he announced he would boost tariffs on Canadian imports by another 10 per cent.
“I don’t want to meet with him. I’m not going to be meeting with him for a long time,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Carney en route to Japan Monday, when he was asked whether he intended to hold talks with the Prime Minister during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea this week.
U.S. President Donald Trump expressed confidence on Sunday over striking a trade agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he is expected to meet next week.
Reuters
Both Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump attended the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, but did not meet there. Mr. Carney told reporters he hadn’t spoken with Mr. Trump since Thursday, when the President terminated negotiations over a slew of tariffs he has imposed on Canada.
Monday was the first time Mr. Carney confirmed a meeting with Mr. Xi. Both sides have been trying to set one up for months. The two countries are attempting to repair a six-year rupture in relations and resolve a punishing trade war.
The Prime Minister said Monday that Canada and the United States had made “considerable progress” in trade talks before Mr. Trump called them off. The countries had been negotiating for more than six months, and Canada has made several concessions, including scrapping a digital services tax that would have hit U.S. tech giants.
At a White House meeting with Mr. Carney earlier this month, Mr. Trump even predicted that Canada would be happy with the resulting trade deal.
Asked Monday how the relationship with the U.S. President eroded so quickly – and whether Mr. Trump is, in fact, toying with Canada – Mr. Carney said: “That’s a question for him.” He said he remains ready to talk with Mr. Trump.
Carney says he will meet Chinese President Xi at APEC summit
Mr. Carney added that he has contingency plans if the U.S. refuses to resume negotiations, but he would not divulge them.
However, he said, part of the response will be evident in Canada’s efforts in Europe, as well as at the ASEAN and APEC summits, to shift trade away from the U.S. to more reliable partners. On Monday, he signed a letter of intent with Malaysia to deepen investment in liquefied natural gas, oil, nuclear power and renewables. Mr. Carney said that by the end of the decade, Canada will be producing 50 million tonnes of LNG annually.
Plus, he said, the Nov. 4 federal budget will contain “generational investments” to build the Canadian economy and make it more resilient.
He said the Americans have an incentive to strike a trade deal with Canada because it would be inefficient to replace Canadian imports. Canada supplies about 60 per cent of U.S. aluminum needs – an energy-intensive metal to produce – and it would be costly for U.S. producers to replicate this. It would require the power of 10 Hoover Dams, at a time when U.S. companies need increasingly vast amounts of energy for AI data centres.
The 60-second TV ad that Mr. Trump cited for breaking off trade talks and threatening to impose additional tariffs uses footage from nearly 40 years ago of then U.S. president Ronald Reagan decrying U.S. protectionism, saying trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.
APEC has laid the groundwork for a more connected global economy and led to the establishment of regional and inter-regional trade agreements. But analysts say geopolitical tensions threaten the bloc and its long term agenda.
Reuters
Mr. Trump, who has said the Ontario government ad misrepresents Mr. Reagan’s comments, said he was raising tariffs by 10 per cent because Canada did not immediately stop running the ad, as he wanted.
After Mr. Trump said he would terminate trade talks this past Thursday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he would pull the ad after the weekend.
The President has not yet issued an executive order to enforce a 10-per-cent hike, and it’s unclear whether this new levy would apply to all Canadian imports or a selection of them. Speaking to reporters Monday, Mr. Trump couldn’t say when the extra tariff would take effect. “I don’t know when it’s going to kick in. We’ll see,” he said.
Mr. Carney, who last month praised China as a country “run by engineers,” is trying to rebuild Canada’s ruptured relationship with this emerging Asian superpower while avoiding alienating Mr. Trump, who expects allies to support his tough-on-China agenda.
Speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur, Mr. Carney wouldn’t rule out relaxing investment restrictions placed in the way of Chinese capital under predecessor Justin Trudeau, saying Canada and China are in the process “of resetting expectations of where the relationship can go.”
Explainer: What you need to know about Ontario’s anti-tariff ad
Carney tries to reassure Canadians after Trump threatens 10% tariff hike
He also didn’t dismiss an eventual free trade deal with Beijing or cutting tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles that Canada imposed in 2024 in tandem with the U.S. The Prime Minister said he would be in a better position to answer these questions as things evolve with Beijing.
Mr. Carney said the rapprochement with Beijing is long overdue. “This is our second largest trading partner. This is the second largest economy in the world. This is one of the most influential actors in terms of the global system such as it is, and it is a country with whom we had no senior-level contact for seven years until I met Premier Li in New York,” he said, referring to his meeting with Li Qiang on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Canada-China relations entered a deep freeze in 2018 after Ottawa arrested a Chinese tech executive and Beijing subsequently locked up two Canadians.
Beijing’s retaliation for tariffs Ottawa imposed on Chinese EVs and steel and aluminum is causing widespread pain across Canada. China has imposed tariffs on canola seed, canola oil, canola meal and peas as well as 25-per-cent tariff on Canadian seafood and pork products.
In addition to U.S. tariffs on non-USMCA-compliant goods, Mr. Trump has imposed a number of sectoral tariffs that affect Canadian industry disproportionately, including a 50-per-cent levy on steel and aluminum and a 25-per-cent levy on automobiles. Softwood producers are facing levies totalling more than 45 per cent.
With reports from Laura Stone and Reuters
The Government of Ontario released this TV ad which will be broadcast in the U.S. that uses a recording of Ronald Reagan to argue against tariffs.
Government of Ontario