Leftist Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Kyiv on Friday to sign agreements supporting the country’s efforts to stop the ongoing Russian invasion of its land, leaving Canada shortly after agreeing to drop tariffs on the United States.
Carney’s tariff policy is notable, and somewhat surprising, after he campaigned for the top office almost entirely on a promise to challenge President Donald Trump, dismantle the longstanding friendly relationship between Canada and America, and convince the United States to drop tariffs Trump imposed to protect American industries. The emphasis on supporting Ukraine represents an abrupt shift away from Carney’s signature campaign policy, the opposition to American interests.
The Liberal leader was first appointed to succeed longtime radical leftist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in March after the latter announced his retirement in the face of shockingly low approval ratings and a surge in popularity for the Conservative Party. Despite having no political experience before becoming prime minister, Carney successfully eliminated a 26 percent conservative polling lead and defeated rival Pierre Poilievre in a general election in April. Almost immediately after winning the prime ministership, Carney dropped his opposition to Trump, visiting the White House and agreeing to policies that brought Canada more in line with Trump’s economic vision for the relationship.
The issue of tariffs, dominant in Canadian headlines on Friday, rapidly evaporated as Carney materialized in Kyiv. The Canadian leader met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in anticipation of Ukrainian Independence Day and signed a variety of agreements to help bolster the Ukrainian military and oppose Russian imperialism.
Zelensky expressed gratitude for the visit and described their private talks as relating to “diplomacy, work within the Coalition of the Willing, sanctions efforts, energy cooperation, Canada’s potential assistance in Ukraine’s reconstruction and rehabilitation programs for our veterans, as well as our defense cooperation.”
Carney reportedly committed millions to help Ukraine produce a larger army of drones, which Zelensky called the “number one priority in defense and tactical operations, as they help save lives on the battlefield.”
The Canadian prime minister’s office issued a statement that, in addition to repeating Zelensky’s emphasis on weapons procurement, went out of its way to express gratitude to the Trump administration for its efforts.
“The two leaders discussed Russia’s ongoing war of aggression and welcomed U.S. leadership in working toward an end to the killing,” a readout of Carney and Zelensky’s conversation read. “The Prime Minister and the President agreed that just and lasting peace can only exist with robust and credible security guarantees, and that no decisions about Ukraine can be made without Ukraine.”
The two countries also issued a joint statement celebrating that Carney’s presence in Kyiv “reaffirmed the strong and enduring partnership between Canada and Ukraine, grounded in shared democratic values, respect for sovereignty and international law, and a mutual understanding that borders must not be altered by force.”
“The leaders called for an immediate, complete, and unconditional ceasefire as a first step toward launching a genuine peace process aligned with the principles of the United Nations Charter,” the statement read. “They emphasized the importance of reliable security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any future peace agreement.”
The countries’ statement did not elaborate on what commitments should be included in an unconditional ceasefire, nor did it in any way define “reliable security guarantees.”
The Ukraine visit served to divert attention from Carney’s pro-U.S. tariff policy. On Thursday, Carney called President Trump in anticipation of the announcement that Ottawa would soon drop tariffs. The prime minister’s office described the talk as “productive and wide-ranging” and addressing “current trade challenges, opportunities, and shared priorities in a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the U.S.”
On Friday, Carney confirmed that Canada would drop retaliatory tariffs on the United States imposed during the Trudeau era — rather than imposing more retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump’s escalation of fees on goods not included in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a continental free trade agreement, throughout the year.
“Canada and the United States have reestablished free trade for the vast majority of our goods. Canada will retain our tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos as we work intensively to resolve the issues there,” Carney declared in victory last week.
The prime minister framed his caving to pressure from Washington as nonetheless beneficial to Canada because the country allegedly still “has the best trade deal with the United States. And while it’s different from what we had before, it’s still better than that of any other country.”
Carney also emphasized that over 85 percent of trade between the two countries remains tariff-free as part of the USMCA.
While campaigning in April, Carney vowed not just to counter demands from America for a better trade atmosphere, but to fight tariffs Canada had nothing to do with. At the beginning of that month, President Donald Trump announced a slew of tariffs on nearly every country that does business with the United States, subject to individual negotiation. The White House explicitly stated at the time that Canada and Mexico were not part of the package of “Liberation Day” tariffs, but Carney issued a defiant public statement, anyway.
“We are going to fight these tariffs with countermeasures. We are going to protect our workers and we are going to build the strongest economy in the G7,” Carney bizarrely vowed. “In a crisis, it’s important to come together and it’s essential to act with purpose and with force, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Carney campaigned on ending the longstanding friendly relationship with the United States.
“Over the coming weeks, months, and years, we must fundamentally reimagine our economy,” Carney promised Canadians. “We will need to ensure Canada can succeed in a drastically different world. The old relationship we had with the U.S. based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military co-operation is over.”
Carney campaigned against conservative rival Pierre Poilievre by falsely declaring him to be too friendly to Trump — a statement clearly rebutted by Trump’s own comments about the Canadian election.
“I think it’s easier to deal, actually, with a Liberal. And maybe they’re going to win, but I don’t really care. It doesn’t matter to me at all,” Trump said in an interview in March.
Of Poilievre, Trump said, “the Conservative that’s running is stupidly no friend of mine. I don’t know him, but he said negative things. So, when he says negative things, I couldn’t care less.”
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