Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday he told U.S. President Donald Trump that he meant what he said in his speech at Davos, and told him Canada plans to diversify away from the United States with a dozen new trade deals.
Carney rolled his eyes and rejected U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s contention to Fox News that he aggressively walked back his comments at the World Economic Forum during a phone call with Trump on Monday.
“To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the president, I meant what I said in Davos,” Carney said to reporters as he arrived for a Cabinet meeting in the capital, Ottawa.
“Canada was the first country to understand the change in U.S. trade policy that he initiated, and we’re responding to that. ”
In Davos at the World Economic Forum last week, Carney condemned economic coercion by great powers on smaller countries without mentioning Trump’s name. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the gathering.
“The world has changed, Washington has changed. There is almost nothing normal in the U.S. now and that’s the truth,” Carney said in French in Parliament on Tuesday.
Tariffs and trade deals
Trump threatened this past weekend to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing, though Carney has said Canada has no interest in negotiating a comprehensive trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said Trump called him and that they spoke for a half hour.
“I explained to him our arrangement with China. I explained to him what we’re doing — 12 new deals, four continents, in six months,” Carney said. “He was impressed.”
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney. The Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance, alarming Canada, which shares a 3,000-kilometer (1,864 mile) maritime border with Greenland in the Arctic. Trump has also previously talked about making Canada the 51st state.
Carney has said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs that were recently imposed on a few sectors. The prime minister plans to travel to India, Australia and other countries in an effort to diversify trade away from dependence on the U.S., which takes more than 75% of Canada’s exports.
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is up for renewal this year. Carney has set a goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade.
At the table or on the menu
Carney has emerged as a spokesman for a movement to link up countries and counter the U.S. under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.”
Carney said he also spoke to Trump about Ukraine, Venezuela and Arctic security in his phone call.
Bessent said Carney spoke to Trump on Monday. The Treasury secretary told Fox News that Carney “was very aggressively walking back some of the unfortunate remarks he made at Davos.”
“Of course, Canada depends on the U.S.,” Bessent said. “There’s much more north-south trade than there could ever be east-west trade.”
Bessent said Canada is linked to the U.S. and that Carney should stop trying to “push his own globalist agenda.”
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, has compared Canada’s recent trade deal with China to an agreement Trump made with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea last summer in which the U.S. cut some tariffs on China while Beijing moved to allow rare earth exports and lift a pause on purchasing U.S. soy.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States. He posted an altered image on social media last week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.
