Mark Carney admits broader trade deal with Donald Trump won't happen

“We’re having very detailed, specific, constructive negotiations for the steel industry, the aluminum industry,” which include talking about “elements” of the energy industry and “a few other components in there, because the Americans are moving to an approach which is sector by sector, as opposed to global,” he said.

In French, Carney said the Americans are only interested in doing sectoral agreements with all countries, not just Canada, and said the premiers and he are now looking toward the “renegotiation” of the CUSMA trade deal, before correcting himself to call it a review.

In English, he pointed out the upcoming “review of our overall agreement, the CUSMA agreement with the U.S. and Mexico, that’s coming up in a few months time, and so broader aspects will be brought there.”

Then the prime minister issued a veiled threat of his own to the U.S., saying that if Canada cannot get fair access to the U.S. market for its products, Ottawa will respond and “change the terms” of its commercial relationship with the U.S. “but we’re not there yet.”

“If we ultimately don’t make progress in these various sectors, we’re going to do what’s necessary to protect our workers, and part of that … starts with building, taking the control there, but it’s also not having unfair access to our market if we don’t have access to another market. We’re not at that point, but we’re, you know, we’ll do what’s right in lockstep together.”

Carney made the latest remarks at a news conference with Ontario Premier Doug Ford to announce $3 billion of federal and provincial funding for the small modular nuclear reactors at Darlington, after he was asked about how Ottawa will support autoworkers in light of GM’s latest announcement it would shut production on an electric truck at Ingersoll.

He cited GM’s contract obligations to its laid-off workers, its marketing troubles with the vehicle model it is cutting, but he acknowledged that U.S. auto tariffs have destabilized the industry, even as he insisted that with current exemptions for Canadian-made products that comply with the CUSMA free trade deal or use American content give Canada “the best deal with respect to autos” compared to how other global carmakers are faring under U.S. tariffs.

Ford, who has played bad cop to Carney’s good cop in his aggressive rhetoric toward Trump, emphasized he was “100 per cent on the same page” as the prime minister.

“It might be a little easier for me to sit here and say what I say, but it’s a lot tougher when someone’s sitting across from Donald Trump and he has a big hammer in his hand,” Ford said as he shared the stage with Carney at the Darlington nuclear generating station in Bowmanville.

“So I support the prime minister one thousand per cent,” the premier said, praising Carney as an “extremely bright business person who has made massive deals in the private sector.”

“I have all the confidence he’s going to get this deal done,” he said, adding the Ontario government will continue its $75 million anti-tariff advertising blitz that Trump has noticed.

“But the message that we’re sending is really the Ronald Reagan’s message that we’re sending out very clearly, protectionism does not work,” said Ford.

“A tariff on Canada is a tax on Americans, and that’s the message. And do I always believe we should be tough, 100 per cent we should be tough. But again, I have the confidence in the prime minister — always have his back — and we are on the same page.

Carney’s claim that Canada has the best deal on auto tariffs was challenged this week by Linda Hasenfratz, the head of giant auto parts manufacturer Linamar Corporation.

She said it is incorrect for Carney to say 85 per cent of Canadian products are currently exempted from Trump’s tariffs.

Since the U.S. broadened tariffs to include all products derived from steel and aluminum, more than 900 product categories are affected by tariffs, she said, stressing that “the absolute priority” for the government must be to get an interim tariff relief deal “ahead of the renegotiation” of the trilateral trade agreement known as CUSMA, or USMCA in the U.S.

“We can’t wait six, eight, nine months to get the tariffs on vehicles, metal and metal derivative products, importantly, dealt with. They’re creating an enormous amount of cost for U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers, but also for Canadian companies.”

Unifor president Lana Payne told the Star this week that the Carney government should not give into any temptation to cut early side deals with Trump on some tariffs while postponing other talks on autos and forestry, she said.

“I think there’s a sense that they’re sending a message that if they can’t get a deal on auto now, that there’s this other place where we could talk about it. And what I’m saying is, waiting for the CUSMA deal is a problem with the tariffs that we’re suffering under. I mean, how long it to negotiate that? The risk is you may not get to negotiate it.”

Payne said she delivered that message to the prime minister when they spoke last week after Stellantis announced the end of its Jeep production plan for Brampton, leaving 3,000 Canadian workers in the lurch, that waiting for the CUSMA “review or renegotiation, or whatever it is they’re calling it” carries a “very big risk. We might not be able to get a deal there. We might be in a situation where the U.S. cancels that deal and that sets the clock ticking.”