Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has confirmed his government prepared contingency plans for the possibility that President Trump could order a military invasion of Canada, a stunning admission that surfaced amid an escalating trade war between the two countries.
Carney made the disclosure in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times published Wednesday, according to the New York Post, describing the scenario as an “extreme tail risk,” a phrase typically applied to rare, high-stakes events that most people would otherwise dismiss as too improbable to plan for.
“I think you have a responsibility in these roles to look at extreme tail risk,” Carney said. “That’s just risk management. That’s not a base case, but it would be irresponsible not to” prepare.
Carney declined to detail exactly what those preparations entailed, though he told The Times he’d worked to diversify Canada’s supply chains, including for technology, to reduce the country’s dependence on the United States. The Times described Carney, a former central banker, as someone inclined to methodically map out and plan for worst-case scenarios before they happen.
The admission comes as relations between Washington and Ottawa have deteriorated sharply. Trade talks between the two countries collapsed earlier this summer, triggering a tit-for-tat tariff war that’s pushed some U.S. duties on Canadian goods as high as 50 percent. Trump has also repeatedly floated the idea of annexing Canada as the “51st state,” including sharing social media images depicting Canadian territory folded into the United States, though he explicitly ruled out using military force to accomplish it back in January 2025.
Despite the tension, Carney insisted diplomatic channels between the two governments remain open.
Separately, Carney has been working to deepen Canada’s military ties with Europe, discussing expanded defense cooperation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Strasbourg this week. Canada recently became the first non-European nation to join the EU’s roughly $170 billion SAFE defense procurement program, part of a broader continental push to bolster military readiness.
Trump has threatened to escalate trade sanctions against Europe if they make Canada an “associate” member of the European Union, another proposal under consideration.
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