President Donald Trump and new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had a few tense moments in the Oval Office before Tuesday, particularly when the issue of trade came up.
Trump set the table even before Carney arrived at the White House, posting on Truth Social, “I look forward to meeting the new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney. I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH — Why is America subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection, and many other things?”
“We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain. They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us! The Prime Minister will be arriving shortly and that will be, most likely, my only question of consequence,” he added.
I look forward to meeting the new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney. I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH — Why is America subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection, and many…
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) May 6, 2025
Early in their Oval Office sit-down, Trump said to Carney, “I think we have a lot of things in common. We have some tough points to go over, and that’ll be fine.”
Carney’s background is in finance, having previously served as head of the Bank of Canada and with Goldman Sachs before that, so he and Trump do share the businessman-turned-politician experience. Carney is now head of Canada’s Liberal Party.
During the public portion of their meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes, Carney said, “We are the largest client of the United States in the totality of all the goods [imported].”
He went on to note that the cars exported from Canada to the U.S. are made up of 50 percent U.S. parts.
Do you approve of the way Trump is handling Canada?
Trump jumped in, saying this is a point of conflict between the two countries.
“This is a very friendly conversation, but we want to make our own cars. We don’t really want cars from Canada, and we put tariffs on cars from Canada, and at a certain point, it won’t make economic sense for Canada to build those cars,” he asserted.
In other words, Trump did not back down one bit, making a visibly uncomfortable moment for Carney.
.@POTUS: “This is a very friendly conversation, but we want to make our own cars. We don’t really want cars from Canada, and we put tariffs on cars from Canada… and we don’t want steel from Canada because we’re making our own steel… Because of past thinking of people, we have… pic.twitter.com/icUG1sz57t
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 6, 2025
But the president continued, saying, “And we don’t want steel from Canada, because we’re making our own steel, and we’re having massive steel plants being built right now as we speak.”
Trump argued, “Because of past thinking of people, we have a tremendous deficit with Canada, and they have a surplus with us, and there’s no reason for us to be subsidizing Canada,” adding, “Canada’s a place that will have to be able to take care of itself, economically.”
Trump concluded, “It’s hard for the American taxpayer to say ‘gee whiz, we love doing that.’”
Carney clearly wanted to respond, but the president ended the public portion of the meeting at that point.
One thing is certain: Trump’s playing hardball with the prime minister.
He did say some positive things about the USMCA trade agreement with Canada and Mexico negotiated during his first term, offering that it was a good start, but it was a transitional deal and due for renegotiation next year.
President Donald Trump says the USMCA is not dead.
He says the trade agreement previously reached between the US, Mexico and Canada was “actually very effective, and it’s still very effective, but people have to follow it” https://t.co/XxscFUpZrV pic.twitter.com/HHVNyKQfzl
— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) May 6, 2025
So the takeaway from the whole exchange is that Trump wants to significantly rebalance the trade relationship with Canada in a way that will hurt our neighbors to the north, economically, but promote U.S. job growth.
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