U.S. President Donald Trump says he’s “not sure” what Prime Minister Mark Carney “wants to see me about” ahead of tomorrow’s meeting.
Trump and Carney are scheduled to speak at the White House on Tuesday in their first in-person meeting since Canada’s election. The two leaders are expected to discuss the months-long trade war that has fractured their countries’ relationship and seeped their respective economies with uncertainty.
“I guess he wants to make a deal. Everybody does,” the U.S. president told reporters in the Oval Office, where he’s expected to host Carney, who moments later waved to cameras as he boarded a plane from Ottawa to Washington.
Sources tell CTV News that Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Minister of Public Safety David McGuinty are also expected to participate in the meeting.
Carney has called Canada’s relationship with the United States an “immediate” priority of his government. The two countries’ trade war has affected tens of billions of dollars-worth of goods and rocked industries that operate on both sides of the border.
Trump has also made headlines for questioning something much more fundamental – Canadian sovereignty – by repeatedly suggesting Canada should be a state.
On Friday, in his first post-election press conference, Carney repeated his assertion that the two countries’ relationship has fundamentally changed.
“As I’ve stressed repeatedly, our old relationship, based on steadily increasing integration, is over,” said the prime minister.
A long-expected meeting
In late March, shortly after the election campaign got underway, Carney and Trump spoke on the phone for the first time as leaders.
Carney, who had been playing double-duty as prime minister and candidate, put his tour on hold for that call with the president, and the two agreed another meeting should take place once Canadians had a chance to vote.
On Friday, Carney outlined the focus of that highly anticipated meeting.
“Our focus will be on both immediate trade pressures and the broader future economic and security relationship between our two sovereign nations.”
The two countries are also expected to reopen negotiations into the rules of North American trade in the near future.
The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, instructs trade between the three nations. It was negotiated during the first Trump administration.
Trade war continues
Right now, the U.S. has 25 per cent tariffs on all goods, and 10 per cent on energy and potash that isn’t covered by CUSMA. There’s another 25 per cent tax on Canadian steel and aluminum, and 25 per cent on automobiles that aren’t protected by the free trade agreement.
Trump has also unveiled a temporary rebate for car companies that finish their cars in the U.S. to soften the blow of his tariffs.
In response, Canada put in place its own non-CUSMA compliant vehicle tariffs, and levies on nearly $60 billion in steel and aluminum products, juice, spirits, apparel, cosmetics, and more.
The effects of the tariffs are wide ranging. Stock market fluctuations made for volatile trading in the days after the fees were announced, which affected savings accounts and long-held investments. Automakers announced temporary layoffs and paused production at its manufacturing plants.
Deal with Canada ‘complex’: Lutnick
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview with Fox News Monday that making a deal with Canada is “really complex.”
“They [Canada] have been basically feeding off of us for decades upon decades upon decades, right? They have their socialist regime and it’s basically feeding off of America,” Lutnick said, adding that Trump “calls it out all the time.”
He then asks why the U.S. makes its cars and films in Canada.
Lutnick, along with other high-level members of Trump’s administration, will be attending the meeting between the U.S. president and Carney.
“I think it’s going to be a fascinating meeting. I’m glad I’m going to be there listening… I just don’t see how it works out so perfectly,” he said.
When asked about whether CUSMA is in jeopardy, Lutnick said “for now it’s ok,” but what we should expect to see is a “revisiting” once the final review is up in 2026.
Trump flips on films
Trump mounted new tariff threats on Sunday against the film industry outside the U.S., vowing to impose 100 per cent tariffs on foreign-made films in response to what he called a “National Security threat.”
“Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated,” wrote the president on Truth Social.
Canada’s film industry is deeply linked to the U.S., and there are various financial incentives available to filmmakers to bring their business to Canada. Toronto and Vancouver are hotspots for American studios looking elsewhere to film. Blockbusters such as “The Shape of Water,” “Suicide Squad,” and “Shazam,” just to name a few, were all filmed in Toronto.
If such a tax was put in place, it‘s unclear how those productions would be affected, considering many of the production houses are based in the U.S.
“They’re not really foreign films. They are American films,” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow told CP24.
With files from CTVNews.ca’s Phil Tsekouras and Lynn Chaya
