Just minutes before a midnight deadline on Friday night, Carney said that Canada was withdrawing from the talks
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney said he walked away from a “bad deal” with the United States and that Canada is now “at war” after being “attacked” by steep tariffs on $29 billion worth of Canadian goods going south of the border.
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“We were attacked. You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked,” Carney told reporters gather in the West Block foyer on Parliament Hill.
Carney was speaking at a press conference on Saturday morning after suspending trade talks with U.S. President Donald Trump and then announcing matching retaliatory tariffs. Carney said the retaliatory measures would come into effect on the Tuesday after Labour Day.
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It is the first time Carney has announced new tariffs on the United States since he was elected prime minister last spring, marking a significant new break in bilateral relations that will have significant repercussions in both countries.
Carney itemized several flashpoints in the final week of negotiations with the U.S. that led to the collapse in talks, including language on auto industry tariffs and “efforts to restrict our protections of our language, our culture, and in effect, our sovereignty.”
He also said the U.S. inserted language into the deal “in the last hours” that seemed to restrict Canada’s ability to make other trade deals, which Carney said would “always be unacceptable to this government.”
The prime minister also said that any deal with the U.S. would be unreliable.
“Our government understood before many that America would transform all of its commercial relationships, that it would put a series of tariffs on its closest allies, and use economic integration as a weapon. We recognize that sometimes its signature was written in pencil,” said Carney.
Carney also hinted at divisions in the U.S. negotiating team that led to last-minute changes in the deal that were unacceptable to Canada.
