Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump are having discussions out of the spotlight to reach a trade deal and lift tariffs.
Sources with knowledge of the conversations first confirmed the calls with CBC/Radio-Canada and Industry Minister Mélanie Joly later told reporters that Carney and Trump are talking to each other.
A source, who spoke on the condition they not be named, said the two leaders have had a few phone calls in the evenings and exchanged text messages about trade since Carney’s visit to the White House last month.
There have been no public readouts of the talks between Carney and Trump.
Sources said the conversations are aimed at reaching an agreement on the trade war launched by the U.S. against Canada.
Carney and Trump have talked openly about a desire to chart a new economic and security deal, but the Canada-U.S. relationship appeared to hit a snag earlier this week when Trump doubled tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.
The tariffs, now at 50 per cent, are a further blow to the Canadian industries that are the U.S.’s biggest supplier of the metals.
Canada posted a $7.1 billion merchandise trade deficit in April — the largest on record — as exports fell sharply in the face of U.S. tariffs. As well, exports to the U.S. fell 15.7 per cent, and imports from the U.S. dropped 10.8 per cent.
On Wednesday, Carney only said “intensive discussions” were ongoing and that his government was readying reprisals if negotiations with the United States failed.
Sources told CBC/Radio-Canada they are hoping for some sort of Canada-U.S. trade deal by the time Trump and Carney meet at the G7 summit — just 10 days from now in Alberta.
Asked Thursday how close the two sides are to a deal, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he’s not talking about it publicly.
Speaking in French, Joly confirmed there have been talks and said it’s normal during a trade war to have diplomatic discussions.
“We won’t negotiate in public,” she added in English. “We’ll let the prime minister do his work.”
A White House spokesperson told CBC News that Trump was “directly” involved in talks with Canada, but didn’t mention Carney specifically.
“Talks with Canada continue about trade, border security and defence matters. Any deal announcements, however, will come from President Trump himself,” spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.
When asked if the federal government is close to reaching a trade deal with the United States, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said: ‘We’ll let the prime minister do his work.’
An official with the U.S. embassy said “both the president and prime minister, or members of their teams, have publicly acknowledged that there are ongoing conversations. But this is not something that will be negotiated in public.”
Earlier this week, Trump’s envoy to Canada, Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, told a crowd in Toronto the deal “is being settled at the highest levels of the U.S. government with the involvement of the highest elected officials.”
The direct conversations between Carney and Trump were first reported by the Globe and Mail.
Carney, who campaigned on the promise he’d take on Trump, has been under pressure to respond to the president’s latest tariff salvo.
The Canadian Steel Producers Association called the doubled tariffs a “crushing blow” to the industry and said the move effectively blocks Canadian steel from entering the U.S. market. The association wants to see immediate counter-tariffs on U.S. metals.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who said he’s in daily talks with the prime minister, called for retaliation if an agreement can’t be reached “in the next few days.”
“Let’s hope they get a deal. But if they don’t, let’s come out guns ablazing,” he told reporters Thursday at Queen’s Park.
