Carney calls Trump’s latest trade measures ‘relatively modest,’ signals restraint

TORONTO -- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney signaled Thursday that Canada may hold off on further retaliation against U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest trade measures, calling them “relatively modest” compared to earlier U.S. actions.The comments came two days after Washington escalated the ongoing trade dispute by banning some Canadian dairy products and motorcycles and most alcoholic beverages after the Canadian retaliatory tariffs took effect. Trump also moved to shut Canadian products out of large, long-term U.S. government contracts.Carney said his government was still studying the measures and acknowledged they could have significant consequences for individual companies and industries. But he noted that some of the new U.S. tariffs replaced others that Washington had removed.“We also recognize that, in the context of other things that the U.S. administration has done ... that these are relatively modest measures,” Carney said at a cabinet retreat in Banff, Alberta. Derek Holt, an economist at the Canadian bank Scotiabank, said this week the latest U.S. measures looked more like an attempt by the Trump administration to “save face” than a major escalation, with the econ...