Prime Minister Mark Carney says it’s up to President Donald Trump to explain how their budding relationship soured so quickly, weeks after their White House love-in.
“In any complicated, high-stakes negotiation, you can get unexpected twists and turns, and you have to keep your cool during those situations,” Carney told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Monday, where the prime minister is attending the ASEAN summit.
“It doesn’t pay to be upset. Emotions don’t carry you very far,” he said.
Trump abruptly called off trade talks with Canada last week over an ad produced by a provincial government that enlisted Ronald Reagan to make a case against tariffs. The president declared the ad “fake” despite its using Reagan’s words.
“They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday.
Carney said he hasn’t been in contact with the president since Trump terminated trade talks on Thursday. “Considerable progress” had been made in steel, aluminum and energy up until that point, the prime minister said, calling fury over an ad an “unexpected” twist.
The prime minister, after learning that Trump told reporters he doesn’t have plans to resume negotiations with Canada “for a while,” said his government is ready “when appropriate” to pick up on trade talks when Americans are up for it.
While Trump said he won’t meet with Carney at APEC in South Korea, the prime minister said he expects to meet with another political heavyweight: Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump’s fallout with Carney involves an ad by Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s conservative government that uses a clip of a Reagan radio address from 1987.
Reagan used the address to explain duties on Japanese semiconductors and squared how it fit in his agenda as a free-trade advocate. In the same address, he warned how high tariffs can beget trade wars — a message seized in the Ontario ad campaign.
Ford, Canada’s most successful populist politician, launched the C$75 million ad blitz on Oct. 16 to run on major networks until the end of January. The premier said his aim was to “repeat that message to every Republican district there is right across the entire country.”
Ford’s province is a key part of North America’s manufacturing heartland, home to Canada’s auto industry, which is being hit hard by Trump’s tariffs.
Trump said he came across the ad Monday. But he waited until Thursday evening to terminate bilateral trade talks, citing a claim by the California-based Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute that the ad “misrepresents” the radio address.
The president accused Canada, not the provincial government that ran the ad, of attempting to influence the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on whether the president can unilaterally impose tariffs under emergency powers.
On his way to Kuala Lumpur over the weekend, Trump accused Canada of “dirty playing” with the ad. “But I can play dirtier than they can,” he said.
Ford said Friday that his government would pull the ad Monday, after it plays a final few times during the first two games of the World Series. But the move provoked Trump, who wanted the ads off air immediately.
Trump announced an additional 10 percent tariff on Canada on Saturday with no details.
Carney tried to defuse the situation since trade talks blew up by distancing himself from Ford. He reaffirmed federal jurisdiction for bilateral trade talks with the Trump administration.
“It is the sole responsibility of the Government of Canada to have those discussions with the United States,” Carney said. “And it’s the best way forward.”
