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Many foreign leaders come to the Oval Office with a plan to please Donald Trump. When Canada’s Mark Carney arrived at the White House on Tuesday, it was the US president who made the flattery.
Trump began meeting with a compliment and respect for the prime minister who had just won the Canadian election.
“I think Canada chose a very talented person,” the president told the Oval office. “I think we have a lot of things in common. We have some difficult points, hard to pass, and that will be fine.”
The initial bonhomie placed the scene for a high-ranging meeting between Trump and Carney that could have dropped to a public spat along the infamous meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, given the president’s voice to make Canada of the 51st US state and trade tensions between countries.
In this case, Carney heard Trump politely by extending his dreams of Canadian annexation while JD Vance, Vice President and Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, quietly sat in a nearby bed.
“It would really be a wonderful marriage because they are two places that go very well. They like each other,” Trump said. But in a noticeable concession that this is unlikely to happen without Canada’s consent, he added: “Need two in tango, right?”
Having warmed on his subject, he added: “I have had many, many things that were not possible, and they ended up being possible.
“If it is for the benefit of all, Canada loves us and we love Canada. Over time, we will see what happens.”
Carney, the former central bank who rode on electoral victory by throwing himself as a defender of Canada’s sovereignty in the midst of a wave of public rage in Trump’s advances, calmly rejected his neighbor’s offer.
“Meeting the owners of Canada during the campaign for the last few months, is not for sale,” he said.
“(Canada) will not be on sale – never – but the possibility is in partnership and what we can build together.”
At home, many of Carney’s compatriots are ready to throw that partnership completely – and consider the US president who has violated a line in challenging their country’s statehood.
But Carney is no longer campaigning. And the former Governor of the Bank of England who observed the United Kingdom to break away from its nearest trading partners know that for Canada, the US and its customers remain critical – regardless of the White House.
The initial good will became further tense as the president noted that he “disliked” Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, as well as a “person who worked for him” -a thin car reference to the former minister of former commerce and finance Chrystia Freeland, who helped negotiate the US trade agreement.
“She was a terrible person and really hurt that deal very badly,” Trump said.
The president also rejected what he claimed was the “unequal” economic relationship between the two countries: “Canada does much more business with us than with Canada.
“They have a surplus with us, and there is no reason for us to subsidize Canada. Canada is a place that will have to be able to take care of ourselves economically.”
Later, Carney painted his visit to Washington as the beginning of a possible restoration in the relationships they had poured under his predecessor – which Trump called “Governor”.
“I feel better about relationships,” he told reporters on the roof of the Canadian Embassy. “(But) we have more work more to do.”
He admitted that after closed doors he had told Trump to stop referring Canada as the 51st state. “I was very clear in private. It was clear in the oval office again,” he said.
Still, when asked what he was thinking as he heard the president depicting the border between the two countries as “that artificially attracted line.
