Canada announced Friday that Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Washington next week to meet with US President Donald Trump for what is being billed as a “working visit.”
While a statement from the prime minister’s office says the visit on Tuesday will “focus on shared priorities in a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the U.S.,” Carney is under pressure at home to negotiate some tariff relief for Canada as sectoral tariffs on autos, steel, aluminum, lumber, and energy continue to bite.
President Trump’s tariff regime has hit the Canadian economy hard, with unemployment hitting 7.1% in August, the highest level since May 2016, excluding the pandemic period, according to Canadian government data.
Carney won an election in April with a strident message for Canadians, warning that their relationship with America would change dramatically in the coming years.
“The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over,” Carney said in March, shortly after Trump imposed a 25% tariff on cars and parts. “It’s clear the US is no longer a reliable partner.”
To that end, Carney has pursued closer relations with other Western countries, courting the UK and France in his first visits abroad as prime minister and collaborating with Australia on new radar systems for the Arctic.
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