Carney and Trump commit to reaching trade deal within 30 days
U.S. president says he wants to 'work something out' with Canada
Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump are putting a deadline on ironing out bilateral trade irritants and getting some sort of deal on tariffs: 30 days.
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said the two leaders met on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta., and agreed the trade talks need to be sped up with a goal of reaching a deal sometime over the next month.
This is the first time either side has put a definitive deadline on reaching a deal to bring the months-long trade war that has been disruptive to economies on both sides of the 49th parallel to a close.
"We agreed to pursue negotiations toward a deal within the coming 30 days," Carney said of Trump in a social media post. "I'm looking forward to continuing this work at this summit and in the weeks ahead."
The new commitment to reach a deal soon comes after Trump sounded an optimistic tone earlier Monday, saying he's sure Canada and the U.S. "can work something out" on the trade tensions in the coming days.
Trump said his "primary focus" of this G7 summit is "trade with Canada."
After making progress on trade, Trump is leaving the summit early because he's needed back in Washington to address what's going on in the Middle East, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a social media post late Monday.
Trump was scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Tuesday — another leader locked in a U.S. trade dispute.
While conceding he's a "tariffs person" who likes the relative simplicity of imposing broad levies on goods from other countries to raise revenue and try to bring jobs back to the U.S., Trump said Carney has come forward with "a different concept," and it's one "some people like and we're gonna see if we can get to the bottom of it today."
"I think Mark has a more complex idea but it's still very good," Trump said of some sort of trade pitch Carney has made to the Americans — a proposal that hasn't yet been made public.
"I think we're gonna accomplish a lot."
Following his rosy remarks about Carney and Canada at a White House meeting in Washington last month, Trump said he's "developed a very good relationship" with the prime minister and he's hopeful the two sides can work out their issues.
This new timeline means Carney will likely forgo hitting back against Trump with steeper retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods after the president hiked global steel and aluminum tariffs from 25 to 50 per cent earlier this month.
At the time, Carney said that rate hike was "illogical" and "unjustified" but he held back from hiking Canada's retaliatory tariffs because the two sides were locked in what he called "intensive negotiations."
In an unusual move, Trump was wearing a second pin on his suit lapel.
Below the standard American flag pin that is ubiquitous on the chests of U.S. politicians, Trump wore a second with the U.S. stars and stripes crossed with the Canadian flag — a friendship pin. Carney, meanwhile, wore his Order of Canada.
The PMO told reporters at the summit that Trump's Canada-U.S. flag pin was not a gift from the Canadian delegation and it was not included in the welcome basket provided to him and other leaders.
A senior government official, speaking on background, said the bilateral meeting was almost entirely focused on advancing the ongoing negotiations over tariffs and Carney's promised overhaul of the bilateral trade and security relationship.
The official said Canada was particularly encouraged by "the length and tone" of the one-on-one conversation between Trump and Carney, which lasted for 30 minutes of the 70-minute bilateral meeting. Other officials then joined for a broader discussion.
Asked later by reporters how the talks with Trump went, Carney simply said: "Fantastic."
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the Canadian side is "confident — I think positive — we made progress" with Trump and there's a deal coming together "that would be in the economic interest of both countries."
He declined to comment on what Trump meant when he said Carney is presenting a more "complex" plan.
Signs of progress
In another sign that the discussions could be headed in the right direction, Trump brought along two of his top trade officials — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer — for his discussion with Carney Monday.
LeBlanc and Kirsten Hillman, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., met with Bessent and Greer after the Carney-Trump tête-à-tête. He said the four of them agreed to reconvene later this week.
"We feel a sense of acceleration in the discussions in the last couple of weeks — and that's a very good thing," Hillman said.
Still, Hillman stressed there is more work needed to win over Trump in particular.
"We have a president who is very convinced of the policy he has around tariffs," Hillman said.
Carney is pushing hard to get Trump's punishing tariffs on Canadian goods lifted — trade action that has already led to job losses in the steel and aluminum sectors and disruption in the auto industry.
"Our position is that we should have no tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States," Hillman said.
"This takes time, it takes a lot of data, it takes a lot of facts. We will continue to talk."
While friendly to Carney in his public remarks, Trump railed against former prime minister Justin Trudeau, blaming him for turning what was the G8 into the G7 by removing Russia.
But the decision to kick Russian President Vladimir Putin out wasn't Trudeau's — in fact it was made in 2014 before Trudeau was even prime minister. The removal came after Russia invaded Ukraine and illegally annexed part of its territory, Crimea.
Trump said it was a "very big mistake" to leave Putin out because there's so much talk about Russia at these summits and it might have been useful to have him in the room.
But when asked if Putin should be invited now or in the future, Trump demurred.
"I'm not saying he should at this point because too much water has gone over the dam, maybe," he said. "But Obama and the proud head of your country didn't want him."
As the host of this 51st G7 summit, Carney was the first to speak at the leaders' meeting, using his time to urge his fellow heads of government to pull together at this "hinge moment" in history.
Just like how past G7 leaders came together to deal with the economic and oil price shocks of the 1970s, the fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain in the 1990s and Islamic terrorism in the early 2000s, Carney said the most powerful democracies can rally to take on an increasingly "divided and dangerous" world.
"We all know there can be no security without prosperity and no prosperity without resilience. In a world where shocks flow across the borders, resilience comes from co-operation, co-operation that starts around this table," Carney said.
Carney said he's expecting some "frank discussions" over the next two days — an acknowledgement that Trump has a somewhat adversarial relationship with leaders sitting around the table.
"We may not agree on every issue, but where we do co-operate — we will make an enormous difference for our citizens and the world," Carney said.
Carney was complimentary of Trump at one point in his remarks, saying the president anticipated "massive changes" in the world and is "taking bold measures to address them" — an apparent reference to the president's first-term demand that all NATO allies dramatically step up defence spending.
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