With less than a week left for Canada to reach a trade deal with President Trump or face additional tariffs, Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday downplayed the possibility of a breakthrough and suggested that Canada might walk away empty handed.
Mr. Carney spoke after an emergency meeting of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories that he convened in response to Mr. Trump’s threat to impose 35 percent tariffs on Canadian exports starting on Aug. 1.
Asked about the likelihood of reaching a pact by that deadline, Mr. Carney said that “we’ll agree to a deal if there’s one on the table that is in the best interest of Canadians,” but then later added in French that “it’s not our objective to have an agreement at any cost.”
Mr. Carney said that Dominic LeBlanc, the cabinet minister who has been the government’s chief go-between with the Trump administration and other Canadian officials, will be in Washington for the remainder of the week.
“They’re complex negotiations and we will use all the time that’s necessary,” Mr. Carney said as he left a resort that hosted the meeting.
Mr. Carney had been optimistic that he could strike an accord that would eliminate tariffs Mr. Trump imposed this year, including 50 percent levies on steel and aluminum, and 25 percent tariffs on the value of autos excluding American-made parts.
He had set July 21 as a deadline for reaching a deal, but Mr. Trump’s latest tariff threats upended that timetable and dimmed hopes that an agreement could be achieved.
Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, declined to disclose what Mr. Carney had told him and other premiers behind closed doors, saying that it could jeopardize the negotiations.
“Donald Trump is very, very hard to deal with just because it’s so fluid, it’s constantly moving,” said Mr. Ford, who is the leader of Canada’s most populous province. “You talk to him one day and all of a sudden he’s on some media outlet saying there’s a 35 percent tariff.”
The premier of Quebec, François Legault, echoed the frustration of trying to reach common ground with the Trump administration.
“What can we get?” Mr. Legault said. “You almost have to ask Donald Trump, and I’m not even sure he knows himself what we wants.”
Like Mr. Carney both premiers spoke about efforts to offset the effects of American protectionism by expanding trade with other countries, growing domestic trade and building major infrastructure projects.
The tensions between the two countries flared earlier in the day, when David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, took Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, to task.
The Canadian Press news agency reported that Mr. Hoekstra, a former Republican congressman from Michigan, said at a conference in Washington State that bans on the sale of American liquor and wine in several provinces were among the reasons Mr. Trump found Canada “mean and nasty to deal with.”
Mr. Eby told reporters that “if you’re a mean and a nasty Canadian for standing up for our sovereignty, our economy and our jobs; well, I think most Canadians would be proud to be considered mean and the nasty.”
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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