Canada’s prime minister, whoever that is in a few weeks, is about to walk straight into a historic crossroads.
We learned Friday the next government will start wide-ranging negotiations on a new economic and security arrangement with the United States.
This could lead to drastically different places — down one path, a long-term deep freeze in U.S. relations; down the other, a tighter relationship than ever in a metaphorical continental fortress.
This development comes on an unusual day. After months of belittling and browbeating, U.S. President Donald Trump is suddenly sounding more congenial.
“I’ve always liked Canada,” Trump told reporters Friday on Air Force One. At another point Friday, he said he had a very good first talk with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“I think things are going to work out very well between Canada and the United States.”
U.S. President Donald Trump said he had a good phone call with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday. Trump spoke generally about his planned April 2 tariffs, and offered no real details of what was discussed on the first call between the leaders, though he did note: ‘I think things are going to work out very well between Canada and the United States.’
Easier said than done. Let’s not pop the champagne corks just yet in celebrating a return to normalcy, shall we?
Tariffs are still in place, and Trump is still a notoriously fickle figure. Today’s warm words could easily turn into tomorrow’s mean tweets and more tariffs.
- This Sunday, Cross Country Checkup is asking: What impact is the trade war having on your job security? How does that affect your vote? Leave your comment here and we may read it or call you back for our show
Negotiations will be further complicated by the fact Canadians are still fuming at Trump, with little appetite for concessions from their leader, says one analyst.
“Canadians have a deep loathing for Donald Trump,” said Eric Miller, a Canadian-born trade consultant based in Washington.
“[Ottawa is] going to have a hard time, a really hard time, navigating through this.”
That said, it’s obvious, in Miller’s view, that Trump felt motivated to cool the temperature with Canada, for one of several possible reasons.
Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney says his phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday morning was very ‘cordial’ between two leaders of two sovereign nations. Carney says Trump respected Canada’s sovereignty both in his private and public comments on Friday.
The American economic mood is souring rapidly. Americans aren’t keen on bickering with Canada. And, well, Carney isn’t Justin Trudeau.
“You see a basic level of respect [for Carney, from Trump] and the sense that things need to move in a bit of a different direction,” Miller said.
Their phone call “certainly didn’t signal a worsening of the relationship.”
Trump’s upcoming demands
So what will Trump want after next month’s election? We can make predictions based on recent public statements and on old American demands that span multiple administrations.
The easiest call of all? Dairy. Trump brings it up constantly, and will be itching to get more market access for farmers in Wisconsin, a swing state he carried.
Carney insists that topic is a no-go: “It’s off the table,” he said Friday, when asked about Canada’s long-standing policy of supply management in dairy.
We’ll see.
The U.S. has other trade gripes with Canada and has spelled them out in the past, notably the digital services tax, which penalizes U.S. tech giants.
On security, a couple of U.S. demands are easily foreseen: more military spending, and faster, especially in the Arctic.
Also expect ramped-up talk about developing Canada’s critical minerals.
The U.S. will also likely push for new measures to keep Chinese products out of supply chains — from steel, to cars. This is a cross-administration, overriding, global, strategic objective.
Here’s a potential wildcard: ballistic missile defence. Canada has traditionally refused to join the program.
Yet now, as the U.S. looks to refurbish its program to deal with a range of new technological threats, some Americans detect a recent openness from Ottawa on that front.
Then there’s banking. Based on recent comments from Trump, Miller says, expect him to push for U.S. banks to have easier access to Canada’s market.
One former U.S. official called it notable that the countries are talking about wide-ranging talks that include both trade and security.
This points to a potentially broader geostrategic play, says Geoffrey Gertz — one where allies lower barriers with each other, but raise them on adversaries like China.
“[It could] really set the foundation for what some people are calling a ‘Fortress North America’ approach,” said Gertz, a former White House and State Department official in the Biden administration.
He described how this could work in a piece he co-authored with Emily Kilcrease, a trade official in the past Trump, Biden and Obama administrations.
For China and other adversaries, they propose new restrictions on exporting products with potential security applications, restrictions on cross-border data flows, and a curb on certain types of business investment.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre gave their thoughts on the apparent change of attitude from U.S. President Donald Trump regarding tariffs for Canada after his call with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday.
Don’t count on details
Canadian politicians won’t be keen to talk about some of these things during the election. They are not vote-winners.
While the Bloc Québécois and NDP might push for details, the bigger parties will have every incentive to quash these conversations. Carney’s flat-out refusal to discuss dairy is an early example.
Canada will have some asks of its own. Dropping lumber duties is one.
But a more ambitious, and important, goal would be taking away Trump’s favourite weapon: tariffs.
The president currently has vast power to impose them, by citing national security, under U.S. law. Canada would love to embed some conditions in whatever legislation updates the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, so tariffs could be fought in court.
“If you’re [the prime minister], what you have to ask for is a prohibition of future uses of tariffs,” Miller said.
Trump will be loath to give that up. As resistant, perhaps even more resistant, than the next prime minister will be to anger the dairy communities of Ontario and Quebec.
This is the world that awaits the future prime minister.
