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Prime Minister Mark Carney tours the Port of Vancouver in Delta, B.C., on July 30.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he is “not interested” in making a narrow trade deal that does not address all of Donald Trump’s major tariffs on Canada, drawing a line in the sand during negotiations over the U.S. President’s trade war.
Speaking at an aluminum plant in Saguenay, Que., on Thursday, Mr. Carney said he hoped there would be a “pathway” to a wide-ranging trade deal before Mr. Trump’s latest set of threatened tariffs is scheduled to take effect this month.
He dismissed the idea of making individual sector-by-sector deals.
“We’re not interested in a very targeted deal without connections to other sectors,” he said in French. In English, he added: “We’re interested in a more comprehensive deal, more global deal.”
The pact, he said, must address autos, steel, aluminum and forest products, all of which are subject to punishing U.S. tariffs. “Will we get all that by the 19th of August? We’ll see. But we want to have pathways in order to get that,” the Prime Minister said.
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The Globe and Mail reported this week that there has been progress on steel and aluminum, but less discussion on autos.
Last month, Mr. Trump rolled out another suite of tariffs, which would hit US$20-billion worth of Canadian goods, from electronic equipment to dairy products to alcohol. Those 50-per-cent levies are currently set to come into force on Aug. 19.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Janice Charette, Canada’s chief trade negotiator, met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at his Washington office on Thursday afternoon.
Asked whether a deal was possible by Aug. 19, Mr. LeBlanc replied, “I hope so,” as he arrived for the sit-down.
Mr. Greer has said that he wants Canada to meet U.S. demands on a host of bilateral trade issues before getting into larger structural issues on auto-sector content requirements. Those demands include granting the U.S. more access to the Canadian dairy market, and putting American alcohol – which some provinces have pulled in retaliation against Mr. Trump’s tariffs – back on Canadian shelves.
Such a sequencing is difficult for Canada, however, as getting Washington to lift punitive tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum is Ottawa’s top priority in talks.
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Mr. Carney also pushed back on Thursday against Mr. Trump’s repeated insistence that the U.S. does not need anything from Canada.
“There are many things that the Americans want from Canada. They say they don’t want them, but they do want them. It’s energy, it’s potash, it’s critical minerals, it’s aluminum,” he said.
The Prime Minister downplayed Mr. Trump’s assertion this week that Canada has “nasty leadership,” saying that it is “easy to talk with Mr. Trump” and that the pair are in direct contact.
“Yes, it’s a tough negotiation, you can change the adjective and say ‘nasty,’” he said.
During a speech at a Las Vegas casino on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said Canada and other countries have “screwed” the U.S. on trade, before describing Canada as “nasty” five times.