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Prime Minister Mark Carney gave no indication trade talks with the United States will resume any time soon, despite apologizing to U.S. President Donald Trump who abruptly ended negotiations over an ad campaign.
Asked Wednesday what the state of his conversations with Trump are and whether negotiations are resurrected, Carney said, “We’ll see.”
“The talks are not yet revived,” said the prime minister in a brief response during a news conference about his government’s recently tabled budget.
Carney said he last spoke to Trump last week when the two attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, where he apologized to the president for the TV spots.
Trump cut off trade talks on Oct. 23 and promised even more punitive tariffs on Canadian goods, blaming an Ontario government-backed campaign that featured clips of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford ultimately pulled the ad but the trade talks still appear dead. Canada has been keen to reach a deal to drop sectorial tariffs, especially on steel and aluminum.
U.S. President Donald Trump looks toward Prime Minister Mark Carney during a toast at a working dinner in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Oct 29. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Asked by reporters Friday whether negotiations between his administration and Canada could resume, Trump said no while praising Carney as “nice.”
“I like him a lot, but you know, what they did was wrong,” Trump said from Air Force One.
On Saturday, Carney said he saw the ad before it aired and told Ford that he didn’t think it was a good idea.
Speaking earlier this week, Ford said he had a different recollection of their conversation but did say Carney called him “a couple of times” from Asia to ask him to pull the TV spots.
“I fully understand the position he’s in,” Ford said Monday of Carney. “He’s trying to talk to the president, but the president was going to give us a terrible deal.”
That same day B.C. Premier David Eby announced that his government was ending a plan to run its own ads targeting Trump’s tariffs, because they had become a “source of anxiety” for the federal government.
“We have committed to the federal government that when the time comes to be speaking directly to Americans, we will do it in partnership with them,” Eby said during a summit on softwood lumber, another industry hit hard by U.S. duties.
While Trump has threatened an added 10 per cent hike on Canadian imports he yet to issue an executive order or give a date.
