Where Carney was once in nearly a 24/7 texting-back-and-forth relationship with Trump, the prime minister and the president have had no contact on trade since the APEC summit in Korea, his office confirmed to the Star Friday.
>Prime Minister Mark Carney and his team are so over it.
>From scampering in search of meetings with President Donald Trump and top U.S. aides all spring, summer and early fall — including the PM travelling twice to Washington and overseas to Egypt where he hailed Trump’s dealmaking — to now shrugging off the current suspension of trade talks, Carney is taking a different tack to Trump. And to the politics of a minority Parliament.
>*Not* negotiating is the new black.
>Where Carney was once in nearly a 24/7 texting-back-and-forth relationship with Trump (as he told Toronto Life on Oct. 16), and their negotiating teams were inching close to a deal, the prime minister and the president have had no contact on trade since the APEC summit in Korea, his office confirmed to the Star Friday.
>Instead, Carney and his team are making a show of biding their time.
>[…]
>But Carney is heads-down on getting on with business.
>In the past two weeks, the prime minister has used two big moments — the Nov. 4 federal government budget and Thursday’s unveiling of a second wave of energy and mining projects to be fast-tracked — as inflection points to pivot Canadians’ attention away from the on-again, off-again trade threats toward a different, more prosperous future Carney insists is within reach, and at risk if the opposition doesn’t get on board with his plans.
>Carney stands “ready” to resume talks whenever the president is willing to negotiate, but he wryly jokes about the conundrum he’s found himself in.
>At a post-budget speech at the Canadian Club, Carney noted former prime minister Brian Mulroney addressed the same club in 1988 “to argue for a free-trade agreement with the United States.”
>“I’d like to argue for a free-trade agreement with the United States,” Carney quipped. “He was a little more successful on that.”
>Two weeks ago, in the interests of appeasing Trump, the prime minister did apologize after the U.S. president expressed outrage over Ontario’s government-sponsored anti-tariff advertisement. Trump ordered U.S. negotiators to cease talks with Canada on trade, and threatened further to jack up tariffs on Canada another 10 per cent – a threat he has not implemented.
>Carney said he, not Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was responsible for the overall Canada-U.S. relationship, and it was appropriate to say “sorry” since Trump had taken offence.
>Yet while Carney offered the apology, he also shifted quickly to promoting the trip to Malaysia, Singapore and Korea as designed to bolster ties to other trading partners and possibilities.
>And for the past two weeks, Carney and his ministers have hit the road pitching the budget plan as “critical” and the 11 major projects now identified as potentially “nation-building” as key to getting on with the job of getting over the U.S.
>That budget — which gets put to a make-or-break vote Monday — acknowledged that the pain of U.S. global tariffs hit more swiftly and caused more of an economic impact than even Carney initially anticipated.
>The fallout and uncertainty created by the Trump’s tariffs shaved about 1.8 per cent off Canada’s gross domestic product, more than what had been forecast a year earlier.
>So Carney frames his “build, baby, build” plan as the antidote to that pain, one that will generate $500 billion in additional private investment in Canada over the next five years, and raise real GDP 3.5 per cent higher than it otherwise would be.
!ping Can
lukasburner on
Good. Trump is an idiot and he’ll come around eventually, most likely, as prices continue to climb in border states and with inputs that we supply. Take notes, Senate Democrats.
sleepyrivertroll on
I mean, yeah, it’s like negotiating with a toddler. There’s only so much you can do before you just put them in time out and start fixing the mess they made. Invest is Canada and other trade partners for now and maybe the grown ups can talk later.
OrbitalAlpaca on
Might as well wait on the Supreme Courts decision about the tariffs before negotiating anymore about them. Waste of breath otherwise.
4 Comments
Where Carney was once in nearly a 24/7 texting-back-and-forth relationship with Trump, the prime minister and the president have had no contact on trade since the APEC summit in Korea, his office confirmed to the Star Friday.
>Prime Minister Mark Carney and his team are so over it.
>From scampering in search of meetings with President Donald Trump and top U.S. aides all spring, summer and early fall — including the PM travelling twice to Washington and overseas to Egypt where he hailed Trump’s dealmaking — to now shrugging off the current suspension of trade talks, Carney is taking a different tack to Trump. And to the politics of a minority Parliament.
>*Not* negotiating is the new black.
>Where Carney was once in nearly a 24/7 texting-back-and-forth relationship with Trump (as he told Toronto Life on Oct. 16), and their negotiating teams were inching close to a deal, the prime minister and the president have had no contact on trade since the APEC summit in Korea, his office confirmed to the Star Friday.
>Instead, Carney and his team are making a show of biding their time.
>[…]
>But Carney is heads-down on getting on with business.
>In the past two weeks, the prime minister has used two big moments — the Nov. 4 federal government budget and Thursday’s unveiling of a second wave of energy and mining projects to be fast-tracked — as inflection points to pivot Canadians’ attention away from the on-again, off-again trade threats toward a different, more prosperous future Carney insists is within reach, and at risk if the opposition doesn’t get on board with his plans.
>Carney stands “ready” to resume talks whenever the president is willing to negotiate, but he wryly jokes about the conundrum he’s found himself in.
>At a post-budget speech at the Canadian Club, Carney noted former prime minister Brian Mulroney addressed the same club in 1988 “to argue for a free-trade agreement with the United States.”
>“I’d like to argue for a free-trade agreement with the United States,” Carney quipped. “He was a little more successful on that.”
>Two weeks ago, in the interests of appeasing Trump, the prime minister did apologize after the U.S. president expressed outrage over Ontario’s government-sponsored anti-tariff advertisement. Trump ordered U.S. negotiators to cease talks with Canada on trade, and threatened further to jack up tariffs on Canada another 10 per cent – a threat he has not implemented.
>Carney said he, not Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was responsible for the overall Canada-U.S. relationship, and it was appropriate to say “sorry” since Trump had taken offence.
>Yet while Carney offered the apology, he also shifted quickly to promoting the trip to Malaysia, Singapore and Korea as designed to bolster ties to other trading partners and possibilities.
>And for the past two weeks, Carney and his ministers have hit the road pitching the budget plan as “critical” and the 11 major projects now identified as potentially “nation-building” as key to getting on with the job of getting over the U.S.
>That budget — which gets put to a make-or-break vote Monday — acknowledged that the pain of U.S. global tariffs hit more swiftly and caused more of an economic impact than even Carney initially anticipated.
>The fallout and uncertainty created by the Trump’s tariffs shaved about 1.8 per cent off Canada’s gross domestic product, more than what had been forecast a year earlier.
>So Carney frames his “build, baby, build” plan as the antidote to that pain, one that will generate $500 billion in additional private investment in Canada over the next five years, and raise real GDP 3.5 per cent higher than it otherwise would be.
!ping Can
Good. Trump is an idiot and he’ll come around eventually, most likely, as prices continue to climb in border states and with inputs that we supply. Take notes, Senate Democrats.
I mean, yeah, it’s like negotiating with a toddler. There’s only so much you can do before you just put them in time out and start fixing the mess they made. Invest is Canada and other trade partners for now and maybe the grown ups can talk later.
Might as well wait on the Supreme Courts decision about the tariffs before negotiating anymore about them. Waste of breath otherwise.