Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, in a reversal, said on Tuesday that “there’s not a lot of evidence right now” that his country can get a trade deal with the United States that does not impose tariffs.
Mr. Carney and officials in his government had repeatedly suggested that they were making progress toward his goal of reaching a deal to eliminate recently imposed tariffs on Canada, including on steel, aluminum and autos.
But a series of recent actions by President Trump undermined Canada’s optimistic outlook.
Mr. Carney declined to say if he has now changed his mind and would agree to a trade deal with U.S. tariffs.
“We will continue to focus on what we can most control, which is building a strong Canadian economy,” he told reporters while going into a cabinet meeting, noting that there was currently little prospect for “any country, any jurisdiction, to have a tariff-free deal.”
During the Group of 7 meeting last month in Canada, Mr. Carney set July 21 as a deadline for a new deal with the United States. President Trump swept that idea aside last week when he said that he planned to impose 35 percent tariffs on imports from Canada on Aug. 1. It remains unclear if those tariffs will exclude products that qualify as North American under the current free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Mr. Trump has already applied 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum — of which Canada is the largest exporter to the United States — and 25 percent duties on cars, excluding U.S.-made parts.
Mr. Trump has said that he will also put tariffs on copper and suggested that he will take on Canada’s closed market system for dairy products as well as the country’s exports of pharmaceuticals and lumber.
Mr. Carney, the leader of the Liberal Party and a political neophyte, came to power this year in a campaign that promoted the idea that his past in finance and as the central banker of Canada and Britain made him the best candidate to deal with Mr. Trump.
In a social media post on Tuesday, the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, characterized Mr. Carney’s admission that eliminating tariffs was likely impossible as “another unilateral concession from a man who said he would never back down to the U.S. President.”
Mr. Trump ended talks with Ottawa last month as Canada was about to collect a 3 percent tax on large tech companies operating within the country, which has been strongly opposed by most U.S.-based firms. Talks resumed after Mr. Carney swiftly canceled the measure.
On Tuesday, Mr. Carney said that Canadians “need to recognize the commercial landscape globally has changed” because of Mr. Trump.
Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times based in Ottawa. He covers politics, culture and the people of Canada and has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].
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