Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks with the media in Ottawa outside his office on Tuesday after his party swept three by-election races on Monday.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada is willing to return to the trade negotiating table once the American side changes its tone.
Speaking with reporters outside his office on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, Mr. Carney said the Liberal Party’s sweep of three by-elections Monday shows Canadians support his government’s approach to trade and the economy.
“When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions,” he said.
Mr. Carney did not elaborate on the various memes and attacks directed at Canada by U.S. officials recently, but in the past week President Donald Trump has signed an order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America and has followed that up with many social-media posts criticizing Canada.
In one statement this week, the President said, “I don’t want Canadian cars, I don’t want Canadian parts, I don’t want Canadian anything. They’ve been ripping us off for decades, and it’s going to stop.”
Carney says the United States needs to start being serious and 'stop throwing shade' before talks on a possible trade deal with Canada can restart.
Reuters
Several of Mr. Trump’s senior officials have also mocked Canada in recent days.
The Liberals won by-elections in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec on Monday. The B.C. and Ontario wins were holds for the party, while the victory in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord represents a pickup.
The Quebec riding had previously been held by Conservative Richard Martel, whom Mr. Carney nominated for appointment to the Senate in July.
“What’s a clear message from last night in three very different ridings across this great, diverse country is that Canadians are behind the plan of the government,” Mr. Carney said. He described Ottawa’s plan as building at home and diversifying trade with reliable partners.
The Liberal government is planning to impose countertariffs on U.S. goods valued at $27.6-billion as of Sept. 8. This is in response to Mr. Trump’s new 50-per-cent tariffs on about $28-billion worth of Canadian goods, imposed after trade negotiations between the two countries collapsed on Aug. 21.
With just a week to go before Canada’s deadline to launch its countertariffs, the U.S. government says such a move would lead to further escalation.
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U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Politico on Monday that Canada could face additional tariffs, “and you could see import bans or prohibitions similar to the ones that Canada has imposed on us earlier.”
The comment appears to be a reference to restrictions imposed by most provinces on the sale of U.S. alcohol.
The U.S. has also objected to rules introduced by Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia that exclude some American companies from bidding on government tenders. The move carries potentially significant implications for engineering projects involving U.S. firms, according to the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers.
Mr. Greer’s office did not immediately respond to a question about which products could be affected by further U.S. retaliation, or when.
In the Politico interview, he said there are “no negotiations happening on trade right now.”
Asked what conditions would be required for the U.S. to return to the negotiating table, he said there is not “a better deal out there available for the Canadians.”
“A deal was available, and they didn’t want that,” Mr. Greer said. “Where is the United States supposed to go from there?”
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Mr. Carney expanded Tuesday on his previous comments that U.S. demands for limits on Canadian trade negotiations with other countries had contributed to the breakdown in talks, as well as details related to the auto sector.
“The attitude of the United States in these discussions, and subsequently, has been one that core Canadian industries either would be subsidiaries, effectively, of the United States industries, or would put in place terms where those industries would be gradually wound down in Canada and wiped out,” he said. “We’re not going to accept those terms.”
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Asheville, N.C., on Tuesday during a gathering of G20 finance ministers and central bankers.
In a social-media post, Mr. Champagne confirmed that the meeting took place but offered no details of what was discussed. “Canada’s plan A has always been clear: strengthening our economy at home and expanding our trade relationships abroad,” he wrote on Tuesday evening.
Mr. Bessent, responding to a reporter’s question at a news conference at the G20 event, said he had spoken to the Canadian Finance Minister “who I have traditionally had a very good line of communication with.”
Bessent to meet with Canadian counterpart at G20 finance chiefs meeting
He said the pair discussed artificial intelligence and “global imbalances where the Canadians have been very strong,” without elaborating on what those imbalances were.
“We discussed how do we put the trade situation back together and I think that’s going to have to be done at the leaders level,” Mr. Bessent said.
Prior to the meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Mr. Champagne said Canada’s countertariffs are aimed at creating a level playing field for Canadian companies in light of U.S. levies.
“Our measures are non-escalatory,” he said. “They are proportionate. They are very targeted. They’re very strategic.”
The President’s trade agenda is facing pushback from Democrats ahead of the November midterm elections, where Mr. Trump’s Republican Party is at risk of losing control of the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate as well.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who leads the Democratic minority in the Senate, announced Tuesday that he is introducing the “End Trump’s Tariff Tax Act.” In a social-media post, Mr. Schumer said his bill “would end the pain of Trump’s costly tariffs - including his latest tariffs on Canada.”
Meanwhile, another Democratic senator sided with Mr. Trump this week on a different cross-border file.
After the President criticized the loss of film and television jobs “to Canada, and other countries,” and called for bipartisan support for a new federal production incentive, California Senator Adam Schiff said on social media that he was “in strong agreement with the President” and called on Congress “to bring back these good-paying jobs that we’ve lost to other countries.”
With a report from Mark Rendell in Toronto