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The Trump administration is once again ramping up its rhetorical pressure on Canada, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issuing a fresh warning to Prime Minister Mark Carney over looming trade negotiations.
Bessent was at an event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to launch what U.S. President Donald Trump has dubbed “Trump Accounts,” an investment vehicle for children.
In an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen, Bessent was asked about the rift between Trump and Carney over the prime minister’s headline-grabbing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week.
“I would just encourage Prime Minister Carney to do what he thinks is best for the Canadian people, not his own virtue signalling, because we do have a USMCA negotiation coming up,” Bessent said, using the American acronym for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
“I would not pick a fight going into USMCA to score some cheap political points.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent commented on U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s relationship after Carney’s headline-grabbing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He told CNBC’s Sara Eisen ‘I would not pick a fight going into USMCA to score some cheap political points.’
Bessent said that Carney “rose to power on an anti-American, anti-Trump message, and that’s not a great place to be when you’re negotiating with an economy that is multiples larger than you are and your biggest trading partner.”
After slapping tariffs on a range of Canadian exports to the United States in 2025, the Trump White House has of late been threatening significant changes to CUSMA as the deal comes up for review this year.
Those threatened changes run all the way up to Trump suggesting the U.S. doesn’t need the agreement at all, despite widespread support for it among American industries.
‘It never really works out well’
At Wednesday’s event, Bessent also took a swipe at Carney’s transition to politics after serving as governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.
“In my investment career, I’ve seen what happens when a technocrat tries to pivot and become a politician. It never really works out well,” he said.
Bessent’s latest comments come on the heels of claiming that Carney walked back what he said in Davos during a phone call on Monday with Trump.
On Tuesday, Carney denied recanting his message. “To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the president, I meant what I said in Davos,” Carney told reporters on Parliament Hill.
Contrary to comments from U.S. officials, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he told the president he stands by the comments he made in his speech in Davos, Switzerland, about world powers.
Trump and his officials have made Carney a frequent target of scorn in the week since he spoke in Davos of “American hegemony” and warned that “great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage.”
Last Thursday, Trump withdrew his invitation to Carney to join his newly created “Board of Peace,” a collection of some three dozen leaders from such countries as El Salvador, Hungary, Israel, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, with Trump as its chairman for life.
On Saturday, in a social media post calling Carney “Governor,” Trump threatened to hit all Canadian goods with a tariff of 100% if Canada “makes a deal with China.”
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick slammed Carney’s speech as “political noise” in a media interview in Davos, “Give me a break, they have the second-best [trade] deal in the world and all I gotta do is listen to this guy whine and complain,” he said. Â
Carney has said the blowback from the Trump administration “should be viewed in the border context” of the upcoming CUSMA renegotiations.
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico must indicate by July 1 whether they want to extend the agreement, renegotiate its terms or let it expire.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with his Mexican counterpart on Wednesday to discuss the CUSMA review.
The pair agreed to begin formal discussions on possible reforms to the agreement, “including stronger rules of origin for key industrial goods, enhanced collaboration on critical minerals, and increased external trade policy alignment,” according to a statement from Greer’s office.
Formal discussions between Canada and the U.S. have yet to begin.