Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told his trade team to come back home from Washington, refusing Donald Trump’s requests and sharing a strong message about the changing relationship between Canada and the U.S.
Carney said on Saturday, “America has changed.
We recognize that sometimes, its signature is written in pencil.”
That’s a big statement from the leader of Canada.
He stopped the talks on Friday night after the Trump team changed their demands at the last minute.
This morning, he gave a 22-minute speech that went well beyond what most countries usually say when talks break down.
“We cannot accept what they offered and we will not give what they asked,” Carney said.
“We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or undermine our key industries.”
According to Carney, Trump’s team wanted Canada to make changes to its rules on French language and culture, and also to change its trade policies toward other countries to match America’s.
Carney called this “a power play” and “a question of sovereignty.”
He also described the situation between two countries that have lived next to each other peacefully for over 200 years in words that would have been hard to imagine before Trump.
“You’re at war when you’re attacked, and we got attacked,” he said.
Trump’s new 50 percent taxes on many Canadian goods went into effect overnight.Canada is now hitting back, and its retaliation will start on Sept.8.
But the real harm might take a lot longer to fix.
Carney reminded Canadians that he had warned last spring that America was trying “to break us so that they can own us.”
Now, his government is taking steps to grow trade with other countries, so Canada won’t rely so much on the U.S.
“Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on America,” he said.
Think about what Trump has done here.
Canada isn’t a hostile country.It’s the neighbor to the south, one of our oldest allies and our biggest trading partners.And now its prime minister is openly calling the U.S.an attacker and telling his people that their future needs to be less tied to America.
Trump likes to say that other countries are afraid of the U.S.
again.The problem is, our closest friends are also learning not to trust us.
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