Prime Minister Mark Carney says the “old relationship” between Canada and the U.S. is “over” following President Trump’s latest auto tariffs, but one expert says that wouldn’t be easy, or even possible.
Speaking with reporters on Parliament Hill on Thursday, the prime minister announced that Canada will be responding to the latest auto tariffs imposed by Trump with its own 25 per cent tariffs on American-imported vehicles to come into effect on April 2.
“I reject any attempts to weaken Canada, to wear us down, to break us so that America can own us. That will never happen. And our response to these latest tariffs is to fight, to protect and to build,” he said.
Highlighting that “nothing is off the table” at the moment, Carney said he will be meeting with premiers on Friday to discuss an appropriate integrated response.
Read More
Carney also made remarks about the necessity of reinventing the Canadian economy to be less dependent on the United States, stating that the “old relationship” between the two countries has ended.
“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” he said. “Over the coming weeks, months and years, we must fundamentally reimagine our economy. We will need to ensure that Canada can succeed in a drastically different world.”
“We will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States. We will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere,” he added.
But according to Professor Drew Fagan, from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, putting an end to this relationship could be a lot more difficult than it sounds, and perhaps even impossible.
Speaking with Now Toronto on Friday, Fagan explained that at least for the last few decades, the two North American countries have had a “tightly integrated” economic and military relationship, in which Canada had become more dependent on the U.S. than vice-versa.
“For the first half of Canadian history, very roughly, the Canadian economy, largely, to a much greater extent, stood apart from the U.S. economy… the relationship is asymmetrical, even if it’s symbiotic.”
The professor said that Carney’s remarks about ending the relationship between the two neighbours might have been an attempt to make Trump understand the seriousness of his latest actions and threats to Canadian economy and sovereignty, but ensures that ending the relationship would not be feasible.
“That’s not possible in geopolitical terms, we live next to the United States… It’s never going to be over,” he said.
Fagan also said that the comments reflect a strategy of trying to strengthen Canada’s trade relationship internally between provinces as well as externally with new foreign economic partnerships, given that trust between both countries has been “broken.”
“There may be opportunity here, but mostly there’s a challenge right now, and it may hurt Canadians in terms of their economic prospects for the foreseeable future, because a transition like this is always difficult, and we may find, after a period of a decade or more, something of a new balance,” he said.
Fagan highlighted that this transition will in no way be easy for Canada, saying that becoming more integrated with the U.S. was a choice, and not a requirement.
“Nothing about our relationship with the United States stopped us from doing that, and we would have done it in terms of the domestic marketplace as well. It’s not like we were forced to deepen our ties with the United States. We did it in our self-interest until we ran into this extraordinary roadblock.”
“Nobody should think this is easy. If it had been easy, we already would have done it,” he added.
FIRST CALL WITH TRUMP
During his announcement on Thursday, Carney revealed that the White House had reached out to Canada to arrange a call between the prime minister and Trump.
“I will make clear to the president that those interests are best served by cooperation and mutual respect, including our sovereignty,” he said on Thursday.
The two leaders spoke on the phone Friday morning for the first time since Carney was sworn in as prime minister earlier this month.
Read More
In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said the conversation with Carney was “extremely productive,” and that the two have plans to meet again after the federal election takes place on April 28.
“We agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors, that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada,” he wrote.
