U.S. President Donald Trump will sit down with newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney in Washington, DC, on Tuesday for the first meeting between the two since the Canadian’s election win.
They’ll have a lot to talk about.
The 60-year-old Liberal Party leader and former central bank governor pledged during the Canadian election campaign Trump would “never break” Canada, vowing Ottawa would look to forge new trading alliances with its southern neighbor even as he added the “special relationship” with the U.S. is “over.”
For his part, Trump called Carney a “very nice gentleman” after they spoke last week but said Monday he was “not sure” what Carney actually wanted to discuss, AFP reports.
“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.
Trump is set to welcome Carney at 11:30 am (1530 GMT), followed by lunch and then a meeting in the Oval Office, all against the backdrop of previous comments by both men on the trade relationship between the two countries centered on tariffs and Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st state.
‘Canada Only Works as a State’ — Donald Trump Refuses to Back Down on Canadian Tariffs
“Carney’s certainly going into the lion’s den,” Dimitry Anastakis, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, told the Financial Times.
“It is a delicate operation. During the campaign he said some very strident things about Trump and the US.”
As Breitbart News reported, Trump delivered 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 imposed similar duties on steel and aluminum.
Carney has vowed to remake Canada’s ties with the U.S. in what would be the 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.
The Canadian said he would also “fight to get the best deal” on tariffs.
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