HUNTSVILLE, Ontario – With less than a week left for Canada to reach a trade deal with President Donald Trump or face additional tariffs, Prime Minister Mark Carney on July 22 downplayed the possibility of a breakthrough and suggested that Canada might walk away empty-handed.
Mr Carney spoke after an emergency meeting of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories that he convened in response to Mr Trump’s threat to impose 35 per cent tariffs on Canadian exports starting Aug 1.
Asked about the likelihood of reaching a pact by that deadline, Mr Carney said that “we’ll agree to a deal if there’s one on the table that is in the best interest of Canadians,” but then later added in French that “it’s not our objective to have an agreement at any cost.”
Mr Carney said that Mr Dominic LeBlanc, the Cabinet minister who has been the government’s chief go-between with the Trump administration and other Canadian officials, will be in Washington for the remainder of the week.
“They’re complex negotiations and we will use all the time that’s necessary,” Mr Carney said as he left a resort that hosted the meeting.
Mr Carney had been optimistic that he could strike an accord that would eliminate tariffs Mr Trump imposed this year, including 50 per cent levies on steel and aluminum and 25 per cent on the value of autos excluding US-made parts.
He had set July 21 as a deadline for reaching a deal, but Mr Trump’s latest tariff threats upended that timetable and dimmed hopes that an agreement could be achieved.
Mr Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, declined to disclose what Mr Carney had told him and other premiers behind closed doors, saying that it could jeopardise the negotiations.
“Donald Trump is very, very hard to deal with just because it’s so fluid, it’s constantly moving,” said Mr Ford, who is the leader of Canada’s most populous province. “You talk to him one day and all of a sudden he’s on some media outlet saying there’s a 35 per cent tariff.”
The premier of Quebec, Mr Francois Legault, echoed the frustration of trying to reach common ground with the Trump administration.
“What can we get?” Mr Legault said. “You almost have to ask Donald Trump, and I’m not even sure he knows himself what we wants.”
Like Mr Carney, both premiers spoke about efforts to offset the effects of US protectionism by expanding trade with other countries, growing domestic trade and building major infrastructure projects.
Tensions between the two countries flared earlier in the day, when Mr David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, took Mr Pete Hoekstra, the US ambassador to Canada, to task.
The Canadian Press news agency reported that Mr Hoekstra, a former Republican member of Congress from Michigan, said at a conference in Washington state that bans on the sale of US liquor and wine in several provinces were among the reasons Mr Trump found Canada “mean and nasty to deal with.”
Mr Eby told reporters that “if you’re a mean and a nasty Canadian for standing up for our sovereignty, our economy and our jobs, well, I think most Canadians would be proud to be considered mean and the nasty.” NYTIMES
