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(Bloomberg) — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada does not need to reach a quick deal with US President Donald Trump, arguing his country has enough leverage in the negotiations to wait longer if necessary.
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“We don’t have to do a deal in the short term,” Carney told reporters Thursday, as he campaigned in British Columbia ahead of the April 28 election. “My government will do the right deal.”
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Carney said if he wins Monday’s election, he’ll focus on lowering internal trade barriers, spurring housing construction and developing resource projects to boost the domestic economy. Those measures will buy Canada time in its talks with Trump and “give us leverage in the negotiation,” Carney said.
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Still, Carney also told reporters this week that he intends to meet face to face with Trump soon after the election, potentially within days.
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That’s despite the fact that Carney was forced to acknowledge Trump raised the prospect of Canada becoming a 51st state during a March 28 phone call between the two leaders. Radio-Canada, the French-language public broadcaster, first reported Trump brought up the subject on the call. Carney had said previously that Trump respected Canada’s sovereignty during the conversation.
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“Look, the president has certain things in his mind that he reverts back to all the time, but treated me as the prime minister, not as something else,” Carney told reporters. He insisted that any talks with Trump will be done on the basis of two sovereign nations.
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‘They Need Us’
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Former Canadian trade negotiator Steve Verheul expects the neighboring countries to be able to reach a deal eventually.
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Renegotiations of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement are expected to begin before a 2026 deadline for a review. Verheul, who was the lead Canadian negotiator on the deal that came into effect in 2020, still sees the potential for the neighboring countries to have free trade.
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“I think that the US will eventually figure out that isolation is not the best route for it to go down, it’ll start looking for allies again, and North America is the safest zone to do that,” Verheul said Thursday at the Public Policy Forum’s Canada Growth Summit in Toronto.
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“The US market will be back and I don’t think we should expect business to start shifting all of their efforts toward Europe or Asia or the domestic market because they’re likely going to shift back eventually when we get a sense of reality in the White House.”
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Verheul sees Canada being able to reach a preferential agreement with the US, especially as Trump has already paused most of his so-called reciprocal tariffs.
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