Key takeaways from Donald Trump’s meeting with Canada’s PM Mark Carney

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has made his much-anticipated first visit to the White House, as his country and the United States continue to spar over trade, tariffs and the prospect of reimagining their shared borders.

Seated across from Carney in the Oval Office on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump continued to advocate for Canada becoming part of its southern neighbour.

But Carney reiterated his firm commitment to defending Canadian sovereignty, in one of the few moments he interjected during his half-hour public appearance with Trump in the Oval Office.

“As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale,” Carney told Trump, in a gesture to the president’s background as a real-estate developer.

He then referenced his mandate from Canada’s recent federal elections, which reflected growing anti-Trump sentiment among Canadian voters.

“Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign these last several months, it’s not for sale — won’t be for sale — ever,” Carney said of his country.

Overall, however, the meeting was cordial, with the two leaders exchanging warm words — and Trump teasing upcoming breakthroughs with armed groups like the Houthis in Yemen.

Here are the key takeaways from their meeting.

President Donald Trump greets Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney outside the White House on May 6 [Evan Vucci/AP Photo]

Trump weighs in on Canada’s election

Carney’s appearance at the White House comes just over a week after his country’s federal elections on April 28, which saw Trump emerge as a defining force.

While the research firm Ipsos found that affordability and the cost of living topped the list of voter concerns in Canada, 24 percent of respondents in April identified Canada’s increasingly fractious relationship with the US as a leading issue in the race.

A separate Ipsos poll found that more voters trusted Carney to handle Trump than any other candidate. Carney’s Liberal Party has also seen renewed public support, buoying it to a fourth consecutive victory in the federal elections.

The centre-left Liberals won 169 seats out of 343, enough to form a minority government — and enough for Carney, a political newcomer, to remain Canada’s prime minister.

The backlash to the Trump presidency began in earnest in January, when Trump took office for a second term. His remarks about Canada becoming the US’s 51st state and his aggressive tariff policy alienated many Canadians, who felt their country’s close ties with the US had soured.

Some voters even feared that Canada’s Conservative Party — which had previously been considered the frontrunner in the elections — might capitulate to Trump’s demands, a sentiment that helped propel the Liberal resurgence.

As Trump opened his sit-down with Carney, he gave a nod to the Liberals’ come-from-behind victory, joking that he took partial credit for the party’s electoral success.

“I think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him,” Trump told the journalists assembled in the Oval Office, gently ribbing Carney.

“But I can’t take full credit. His party was losing by a lot. And he ended up winning. So I really want to congratulate him. It was probably one of the greatest comebacks in the history of politics. Maybe even greater than mine.”

Reporters gather to ask Carney and Trump questions about the future of US-Canada relations [Evan Vucci/AP Photo]

Trump and Carney exchange praise

Trump proceeded to shower Carney with praise, calling him a “very good” and “very talented person” with whom he had “a lot of things in common”. By contrast, the US president launched a quick barb at Carney’s predecessor, fellow Liberal Justin Trudeau, who served as Canada’s prime minister from 2015 until March of this year.

“I didn’t like his predecessor,” Trump said shortly. He also hinted at other tense relationships with other world leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with whom he had an Oval Office shouting match in February.

“ This is very friendly. This is not gonna be like we had another little blow-up with somebody else. It was a much different. This is a very friendly conversation,” Trump said.

Carney, for his part, responded with compliments of his own for Trump.

“You’re a transformational president,” Carney said at the outset, praising the US president’s “relentless focus on the American worker”. He also drew a parallel between Trump’s leadership and his own, saying he had been elected “to transform Canada, with a similar focus on the economy” and “securing our borders”.

“The history of Canada and the US is we’re stronger when we work together, and there are many opportunities to work together,” Carney said. “I look forward to addressing some of those issues that we have, but also finding those areas of mutual cooperation so we can go forward.”

Carney: Canada is ‘not for sale’

The two leaders’ conversation, however, quickly shifted to one of the most contentious issues facing their respective countries: Trump’s threats to make Canada part of the US.

Since December, Trump has made regular remarks to the effect that Canada should be absorbed into the US as its 51st state, owing to an imbalance of trade across the two countries’ borders.

According to the US government, Canada is the largest destination for US exports and one of its top three sources for imports. But Canada exports more to the US than it imports, creating a deficit of $63.3bn in Canada’s favour.

Experts say trade deficits are not necessarily a bad thing: They can indicate a stronger consumer base or differences in currency value. But Trump has repeatedly framed the US’s trade deficit with Canada as a “subsidy” that keeps the country afloat economically.

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s meeting, the US president pledged to broach the issue of statehood with Carney. “I’ll always talk about that,” he told the TV news programme Meet the Press on Saturday.

But during the public portion of their meeting, Trump took a more subdued approach, saying that, while he believed statehood to be a boon for Canada, he would not force the issue.

“I still believe that, but it takes two to tango, right?” Trump told reporters. He later added, “I do feel it’s much better for Canada. But we’re not gonna be discussing that unless somebody wants to discuss it.”

He nevertheless revisited familiar arguments for combining the two countries, including that becoming a state would allow Canada to avoid the steep 25-percent tariffs the US has placed on many of its imports, including steel and aluminium.

“I believe it would be a massive tax cut for the Canadian citizens. You get free military, you get tremendous medical care and other things. There would be a lot of advantages, but it would be a massive tax cut,” he said.

When Carney responded that Canada was “not for sale”, Trump doubled down, saying, “Never say never.” But Carney scrunched up his face with a cheeky look and appeared to mouth the word “never” multiple times to the journalists circled around them.

He also attempted to steer the discussion to more neutral ground, praising Trump for pushing Western powers to invest more in military defence.

Still, reporters continued to press the two leaders about the controversial remarks. One asked Trump whether he would accept the will of the Canadian people not to become a 51st state.

“Sure, I would,” Trump replied. “But this is not necessarily a one-day deal. This is over a period of time they have to make that decision.”

Carney once again chimed in with a brief but blunt response. “Respectfully, Canadians’ view on this is not going to change.”

Officials including US Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were also in attendance at the Oval Office meeting [Leah Millis/Reuters]

Trump stands firm on US tariffs

Trump himself was unwavering in his commitment to imposing tariffs on Canada, describing the import taxes as essential to protecting US industries from competition.

“Is there anything he can say to you in the course of your meeting with him today that can get you to lift tariffs on Canada?” a reporter in the Oval Office asked.

Trump responded with brevity: “No.”

He later explained that it was his hope to create US industries that relied on no outside support, not even from close allies like Canada, whose economy is intimately interwoven with that of its southern neighbour. Trump referenced the decline of the American auto and steel industries as motives.

“We want to make our own cars. We don’t really want cars from Canada, and we put tariffs on cars from Canada. At a certain point, it won’t make economic sense for Canada to build those cars,” Trump said. “And we don’t want steel from Canada because we’re making our own steel, and we’re having massive steel plants being built right now as we speak.”

He also repeated his false assertion that the US trade deficit with Canada amounted to a “subsidy” — and he appeared to cast doubt about whether Canada’s economy would survive without US support.

“They have a surplus with us, and there’s no reason for us to be subsidising Canada,” Trump said. “Canada will have to be able to take care of itself economically. I assume they can.”

Carney, meanwhile, highlighted the close relations the US and Canada have enjoyed in the past, arguing that cross-border trade has made both of their economies stronger.

“We are the largest client of the United States in the totality of all the goods. So we are the largest client in the United States,” he said. “Fifty percent of a car that comes from Canada is American. That’s not like anywhere else in the world.”

Both leaders agreed that the current United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) needed to be renegotiated. Canada has accused Trump of violating the free-trade agreement, which was signed under the US president’s first term in 2019.

“ The USMCA is great for all countries,” Trump said during Tuesday’s Oval Office meeting. But he added that the deal was a “transitional step” and that it would “get renegotiated very shortly”.

Carney echoed that assessment, saying that the USMCA would be a launchpad for broader discussions.

“It is a basis for a broader negotiation. Some things about it are going to have to change,” he said, offering measured criticism of Trump’s tariff policy. “Part of the way you’ve conducted these tariffs has taken advantage of existing aspects of USMCA, so it’s going to have to change.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney waves as he departs the White House [Evan Vucci/AP Photo]

Trump touts breakthrough with Houthis

While much of the Oval Office discussion revolved around trade, Trump briefly veered into the topic of international conflicts, saying that the war in Ukraine would feature heavily in his closed-door discussions with Carney.

He also announced his administration would end its nearly two-month-long bombing campaign in Yemen, where the US military has been attacking Houthi strongholds.

The US Central Command has said more than 800 targets have been bombed since Trump began the US’s latest round of strikes on March 15, known as Operation Rough Rider.

But the effort has been riddled with controversy. Aid groups have warned of civilian casualties, including the suspected bombing of a migrant centre in Saada, in the north of Yemen. And details of the initial strikes were accidentally leaked to a journalist on the messaging app Signal, spurring questions about mismanagement within the Trump White House.

But on Tuesday, Trump announced a shift in the ongoing fight with the Houthis.

“We had some very good news last night,” Trump said. “They’ve announced — to us, at least — that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight. And we will honour that. And we will stop the bombings.”

The Houthis had been launching attacks against commercial vessels and naval ships in the Red Sea, as part of the group’s opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 52,615 Palestinians.

“They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore. And that’s the purpose of what we were doing,” Trump added. “We are going to stop the bombing of the Houthis effective immediately.”

Shortly thereafter, a senior Houthi official said on Al Masirah TV that the deal would not preclude future attacks against Israel.