Prime Minister Mark Carney boards a government plane to Washington on May 5. U.S. President Donald Trump wants this visit to be about Mr. Carney asking for a deal.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Donald Trump, the U.S. President who reigns like a king, has now deemed it highly unlikely that he will attack Canada militarily. Not impossible, not out of the question, but you know, just a sliver of possibility – keeping options open.
Don’t wait for Republicans in the U.S. Congress, or commentators on Fox News or Newsmax, to point out that leaving that door ajar even a little is nutty, and insulting. You don’t dare say such things about the king.
And when Prime Minister Mark Carney walks into this strange world when he visits the White House on Tuesday, the first question he has to face is whether there can be any constraints on King Trump.
In particular, the problem is that Mr. Trump keeps breaking his own word by declaring national emergencies, and the U.S. political system isn’t inclined to curb his royal whims.
There will already be a surreal set of concerns for Mr. Carney’s visit to the Oval Office.
On Justin Trudeau’s first trip, he made sure to get the better of hand-squeezing handshake.
Mr. Trump, after a phone call with Mr. Carney last week, called him a “nice gentleman.” On Monday, the President said he doesn’t know why the Prime Minister is coming, but that the visitor probably wants to make a deal.
Mr. Trump wants this visit to be about Mr. Carney asking for a deal.
But who knows if the Prime Minister might be berated like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, or called governor, or given a new nickname?
On Monday, Mr. Carney arrived in Washington with three ministers, his most senior aides and a squad of officials, but there’s only so much you can prepare.
The Prime Minister has a chance to make an impression, talk up Mr. Trump’s role in negotiating the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in his first term, and suggest Canada is willing to do some things the U.S. wants – such as spending more on defence and developing critical minerals.
But the underlying question is whether anything will last through the President’s next impulse.
Mr. Trudeau signed the USMCA trade deal with Mr. Trump in 2018, but the U.S. President still (albeit briefly) imposed tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. And since returning to the White House in January, he has reneged on the whole spirit of the deal by declaring national emergencies.
Emergencies are Mr. Trump’s favourite tactic, allowing him to take on powers normally reserved to the U.S. Congress – most notably so that he can impose tariffs. Last week, the Senate voted down Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s resolution to give Congress the ability to curb Mr. Trump’s use of emergency provisions to set tariffs.
On Sunday, he announced that the U.S. would impose a 100-per-cent tariff on films produced in other countries, deeming them a threat to national security.
That’s bizarre, because if there is any business in which the U.S. dominates the global market, it’s movies. It’s not clear how one sets a tariff on films, either. But it’s an emergency.
Canada has already faced tariffs because of the fentanyl emergency, the steel and aluminum emergency, the auto emergency – and now there’s the Hollywood emergency.
Mr. Carney has said he’s seeking a comprehensive agreement on trade and security issues, but there are dangers in trying to do all that at once at a time when Mr. Trump acts on whims.
The Prime Minister might look for a shorter-term tariff truce, where he exchanges some commitment to beef up Canadian military spending for the President’s agreement to drop levies – and all those claims that Canada and its goods are a threat to U.S. national security.
That’s like asking Mr. Trump to give up his favourite toy. He’d certainly want to be able to claim he forced Mr. Carney to give him something pretty good in return.
If the Prime Minister can find something, it might give him some room to push off broader trade talks till next year, in the hope that eventually, Mr. Trump will face a few more constraints from inside the U.S.
But Mr. Carney has been careful to insist Canadians should not expect “white smoke” – a conclusion – coming from this meeting. Making a connection with the king could be important. But Canada can’t count on any deal lasting as long as Mr. Trump can reign like a monarch.