Carney Visits DC
Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is in DC today for a meeting with President Trump. While many may have hoped for some positive trade deal news coming out of the meeting, the day got off to a bad start with President Trump posting about America subsidizing Canada on social media as Carney was headed to the White House.
The press conference with Trump and Carney didn’t go much better. Carney was extremely reserved and diplomatic in front of reporters, though there were one or two moments when an eagle-eyed viewer could catch Carney’s eye roll.
The first question to Trump was about USMCA, which Trump categorized as “very effective, but people …haven’t followed it.” He called the USMCA a “transitional deal” that “we're going to be starting to possibly renegotiate that if it's even necessary.” He repeated the claim that NAFTA was the “worst trade deal in the history of our country, probably in the history of the world” and said that the biggest purpose USMCA served was “we got rid of NAFTA.”
Later in the meeting Trump said USMCA is “good for all countries. We do have a negotiation coming up over the next year or so to adjust it or terminate it.” Carney added:
It is a basis for a broader negotiation. Some things about it are going to have to change, and part of the way you've conducted these tariffs have taken advantage of existing aspects of the USMCA. So it's going to have to change.
A reporter asked Carney’s reaction to Trump’s insistence that Canada should be the 51st state:
There are some places that are never for sale. It's true. We're sitting in one right now [gestures to the White House], you know, Buckingham Palace that you visited as well, and having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign last several months, it's not for sale, won't be for sale ever, but the opportunity is in the partnership and what we can build together.
As the press conference went on, Trump repeated the statistic that the U.S. does not do much business with Canada (“we’re at like 4%”) and told reporters that Canadians would save on the tariffs if they became the 51st state. Carney responded:
Well, I respectfully, Canadians' view on this is not going to change on the 51st state. Secondly, we are the largest client of the United States. In the totality of all the goods, so we are the largest client in the United States. We have a tremendous auto sector between the two of us and the changes they've made have been helpful, you know, 50% of a car that comes from Canada is American. That's not like anywhere else in the world.
Trump explained to reporters that this was a “very friendly conversation” but “we want to make our own cars, we don’t really want cars from Canada.” Trump continued:
Because of past thinking of people, we have a tremendous deficit with Canada. In other words, they have a surplus with us and there's no reason for us to be subsidizing Canada. Canada is a place that will have to be able to take care of itself economically. I assume they can.
Trump was asked directly by a reporter if there was anything Carney could do or say during his visit to change Trump’s mind on tariffs. Trump’s answer? “No. That’s just the way it is.” The only concession he wanted out of Canada from this meeting: friendship.
Trump also complained about the media asking him about trade deals all the time:
We don’t have to sign deals. We could sign 25 deals right now. We don’t have to sign deals, they have to sign deals with us. So we can just sit down, and I’ll do this at some point over the next two weeks. … We're going to put down some numbers and we're going to say, ‘Our country is open for business,’ and they're going to come in and they're going to pay for the privilege of being able to shop in the United States of America. It's very simple. It's very simple. So, I wish they'd stop asking how many deals are you signing this week because one day, we'll come and we'll give you 100 deals and they don't have to sign. All they have to do is say, ‘Oh, we'll start sending our ships right now to pick up whatever we want or to bring whatever we want.’