{"id":26370,"date":"2025-05-06T23:08:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T23:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=26370"},"modified":"2025-05-06T23:08:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T23:08:55","slug":"mark-carney-holds-his-own-in-oval-office-encounter-with-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=26370","title":{"rendered":"Mark Carney holds his own in Oval Office encounter with Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=1bdebe74-8db7-404e-870f-e69308787357&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Many foreign leaders come to the Oval Office with a plan to flatter Donald Trump. When Canada\u2019s Mark Carney arrived at the White House on Tuesday, it was the US president doing the flattery.<\/p>\n<p>Trump began the meeting with a compliment and a nod of respect for the prime minister who had just won the Canadian election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/canada\" data-trackable=\"link\">Canada<\/a> chose a very talented person,\u201d the president said in the Oval Office. \u201cI think we have a lot of things in common. We have some tough, tough points to go over, and that will be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The initial bonhomie set the stage for a high-stakes encounter between Trump and Carney that could well have descended into a into a public spat along the lines of last month\u2019s infamous encounter with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, given the president\u2019s vocal push to make Canada the 51st US state and rampant trade tensions between the countries. <\/p>\n<p>In the event, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/1b98c8c2-6a96-46df-8fbb-65beb67d69c9\" data-trackable=\"link\">Carney<\/a> politely listened to Trump extol his dreams of Canadian annexation while JD Vance, the vice-president, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, sat quietly on a nearby couch. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would really be a wonderful marriage because it\u2019s two places that get along very well. They like each other a lot,\u201d Trump said. But in an apparent concession that this was unlikely to happen without Canada\u2019s consent, he added: \u201cIt takes two to tango, right?\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Warming to his theme, he added: \u201cI\u2019ve had many, many things that were not doable, and they ended up being doable. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it\u2019s to everybody\u2019s benefit, Canada loves us, and we love Canada\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009over time, we\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Carney, the former central banker who rode to electoral victory by casting himself as the defender of Canada\u2019s sovereignty amid a wave of public fury at Trump\u2019s advances, calmly but firmly rejected his neighbour\u2019s offer. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it\u2019s not for sale,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Canada] won\u2019t be for sale \u2014 ever \u2014 but the opportunity is in the partnership and what we can build together.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Back home, many of Carney\u2019s compatriots are ready to ditch that partnership altogether \u2014 and consider the US president to have stepped over a line in challenging their country\u2019s statehood. <\/p>\n<p>But Carney is no longer campaigning. And the former Bank of England governor who watched the UK cut itself off from its closest trading partners knows that for Canada, the US and its customers remain critical \u2014 whatever the person in the White House says.<\/p>\n<p>The initial goodwill became further strained as the president remarked how he \u201cdidn\u2019t like\u201d Carney\u2019s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, as well as a \u201cperson that worked for him\u201d \u2014 a thinly veiled reference to former trade and finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who helped negotiate the USMCA trade deal in Trump\u2019s first term. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was a terrible person, and she really hurt that deal very badly,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n<p>The president also bashed what he claimed was the \u201cunequal\u201d economic relationship between the two countries: \u201cCanada does a lot more business with us than we do with Canada. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have a surplus with us, and there\u2019s no reason for us to be subsidising Canada. Canada is a place that will have to be able to take care of itself economically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Later, Carney painted his visit to Washington as the beginning of a possible reset in relations that had soured under his predecessor \u2014 who Trump referred to as \u201cgovernor\u201d. <\/p>\n<aside aria-labelledby=\"aside-label\" class=\"n-content-recommended--single-story n-content-recommended--inset\" data-component=\"recommended\">\n<p class=\"n-content-recommended__title o3-type-body-highlight\">Recommended<\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser o-teaser--article o-teaser--small o-teaser--stacked o-teaser--has-image o-teaser--opinion js-teaser\" data-id=\"f063d7df-3b55-460b-8a69-2d9393e2c166\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-container js-teaser-image-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/f063d7df-3b55-460b-8a69-2d9393e2c166\" data-trackable=\"image-link\" data-trackable-context-story-link=\"image-link\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-placeholder\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2290\/1289\"><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI feel better about the relations,\u201d he told journalists on the roof of the Canadian Embassy. \u201c[But] we have more a lot of more work to do.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>He admitted that behind closed doors he had told Trump to stop referring to Canada as the 51st state. \u201cI\u2019ve been very clear in private. It was clear again in the Oval Office,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Still, when asked what he was thinking as he listened to the president describe the border between the two countries as \u201cthat artificially drawn line\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009somebody drew that line many years ago with, like, a ruler\u201d, he smiled briefly and replied: \u201cI\u2019m glad that you couldn\u2019t tell what was going through my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/1bdebe74-8db7-404e-870f-e69308787357\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}