Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, said on Thursday that the era of traditional relationship with the United States based on economic integration and military cooperation is “over”, even as he suggested impending talks with President Donald Trump over a raging tariff war.
“The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over. What exactly the United States does next is unclear. But what is clear is that we as Canadians have agency, we have power. We are masters in our own home,” Carney said after an urgent meeting with a cabinet committee on Canada-US relations.
Trump and Carney have not spoken since the new Canadian prime minister assumed office on March 14. The Liberal Party leader said he expects to hold a conversation with the US president in the “next day or two” but did not indicate an improvement in bilateral relations.
Carney said it is clear that the US is no longer a reliable partner.
“It is possible that with comprehensive negotiations, we will be able to restore some trust, but there will be no turning back. The next government and all that follow will have a fundamentally different relationship with the United States,” he added.
Canada has retaliated with tariffs on US imports worth $41.9 billion in response to Trump’s tariffs on Ottawa’s exports, including steel and aluminium. Carney’s government has also vowed to impose more tariffs on roughly $66 billion worth of American imports in response to Trump’s latest 25 per cent tariffs on automobiles with non-domestic components.
