{"id":180509,"date":"2026-08-24T10:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T10:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/180509\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T10:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T10:21:14","slug":"carney-v-trump-the-observer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/180509\/","title":{"rendered":"Carney v Trump | The Observer"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article first appeared as part of the Daily Sensemaker newsletter \u2013 one story a day to make sense of the world. To receive it in your inbox, featuring content exclusive to the newsletter, sign up for free here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

New American tariffs come into force in earnest today on $20bn-worth of Canadian goods ranging from ice hockey sticks to false moustaches.<\/p>\n

So what? This is war. So said Mark Carney, Canada\u2019s prime minister, in a speech on Saturday that may be remembered as his most important since January, when he told the world\u2019s middle power countries to stop sucking up to Trump and stand up to him instead.<\/p>\n

That was about Greenland, and $20bn isn\u2019t much compared with total US-Canadian trade (worth $900bn a year) or with the value of Canadian exports of steel, aluminium, cars and timber on which Washington has already imposed 25-50% tariffs. Even so, these new levies are a critical test of<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Carney\u2019s nerve as a champion of the threadbare international rules-based order;<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s use of the 1930 Tariff Act to keep bullying US trading partners, after being told by the Supreme Court he can\u2019t justify tariffs as a response to a national emergency; and<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s appetite for tariffs generally as Trumponomics falters<\/a>, US debt soars and inflation threatens to punish Republicans at the midterms.<\/p>\n

Carney\u2019s beef. Where to start? \u201cAmerica is trying to break us so they can own us,\u201d he says of Trump\u2019s continued taunting about Canada as a 51st state. He ordered his negotiators to pull out of trade talks late on Friday, accusing the US of throwing in last-minute deal-breakers on cars, trade policy and culture. Trump\u2019s point-person said Canada was to blame.<\/p>\n

Why the talks? Carney proposed them with a view to a general reset after 18 months of trade skirmishing and Trump\u2019s announcement of the new tariffs last month. (Then as now, Trump may have been looking for distractions from his Iran fiasco \u2013 in the interim he has also picked on Oman and South Korea.) Carney doesn\u2019t try to hide his irritation with White House efforts to sabotage a trading relationship that earns the US $1.6bn a day.<\/p>\n

The detail. On cars, Carney said the US wanted to keep tariffs on big pick-ups and \u201clight trucks\u201d made in Canada. On trade policy, it wanted to limit Canada\u2019s ability to make its own deals with other countries. On culture, it wanted to limit Canada\u2019s official use of French.<\/p>\n

Between the lines. By Thursday, both sides thought they were close to a deal. US negotiators led by Jamieson Greer, a Trump loyalist, were optimistic. Theories on what happened next include\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

a spanner in the works from Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, thought to have made late interventions on behalf of US auto makers and aluminium smelters;<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

a \u201cpower play\u201d (Carney\u2019s words), picking on Canada\u2019s trade deals and use of French because those are things Washington would meddle with if Canada were a US state; and<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Canadian politics: Francophone separatists lead in polls before a provincial election in Quebec, and Carney has to be seen to be foursquare behind the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois.<\/p>\n

To note. Carney hasn\u2019t always been uncompromising towards Trump. He has caved on taxing American tech firms and streamers and most notably on the $300m Gordie Howe Bridge across the Detroit River \u2013 paid for entirely by Canada but opened last month only after Ottawa let Washington take half the tolls.<\/p>\n

The upshot. \u201cDollar for dollar\u201d retaliatory Canadian tariffs come into force on 8 September \u2013 unless Trump blinks. It wouldn\u2019t be the first time if he did, but if he doesn\u2019t then a full-blown trade war could ensue in which David Frum (who is Canadian) suggests<\/a> the question won\u2019t be how much pain each country can inflict, but how much it can endure. In that scenario it could make a difference that nearly two thirds of Canadians back strong opposition to US tariffs; and that Carney has a 60 per cent approval rating to Trump\u2019s 33.<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s more\u2026 Carney has two nuclear options: denying the US access to Canadian critical minerals \u2013 vital for weapons, satellites and turbines \u2013 and energy. No wonder he radiates confidence.<\/p>\n

Photograph by Dave Chan \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article first appeared as part of the Daily Sensemaker newsletter \u2013 one story a day to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[17,162,111,6133],"class_list":["post-180509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-mark-carney","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}