Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will on Tuesday meet with President Donald Trump for the first time since he won reelection on a pledge to stand up to the United States leader’s tariffs and annexation threats.
Carney has said that things cannot be the same with the United States under Trump, and warned against expectations of any immediate agreements from the meeting at the White House.
DAILY POST reports that Trump has sparked a major trade war with Canada, which counts the United States as its main ally and trading partner, while repeatedly making extraordinary calls for Canada to become the 51st US state.
Trump had called Carney a “very nice gentleman”; after the duo spoke last week but said on Monday that he was “not sure”; what Carney wanted to talk about.
“He’s coming to see me. I’m not sure what he wants to see me about, but I guess he wants to make a deal. Everybody does,”; Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The Republican is set to welcome Carney at 11:30 am (1530 GMT), followed by lunch and then a meeting in the Oval Office.
Recall that Trump imposed general tariffs of 25 percent on Canada and Mexico and sector-specific levies on autos, some of which have been suspended pending negotiations. He has also slapped similar duties on steel and aluminum.
The 60-year-old Canadian Liberal Party leader has vowed to remake Canada’s ties with the United States in perhaps its biggest political and economic shift since World War II.
“Our old relationship based on steadily increasing integration is over. The questions now are how our nations will cooperate in the future,”; Carney said on Friday.
