After their Oval Office encounter under the glare of the TV lights, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his U.S. counterpart retreated to the Roosevelt Room for a working lunch on Tuesday. Much of the mealtime chatter was about foreign policy issues, according to a senior Canadian official.
The two leaders got along quite well, the official said, and the president stressed at the start and end of the luncheon that it was an honour to host the new prime minister at the White House.
Trump said at the time he regarded the day’s discussions as “great” — matching comments he later told the White House press pool.
“He’s a nice man. We get along very well. We had a great meeting today — really. I think the relationship’s going to be very strong,” Trump said of Carney.
While there were niceties, Carney was clear with Trump in private, as he was in his public statements before the press, that Canada and the U.S. coming together as one country is a non-starter, according to the official, who spoke to CBC News and other reporters travelling with the prime minister on background and with the condition that they not be named.
Carney told reporters he personally asked Trump to stop with the annexationist talk.
During a news conference in Washington following his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he is making the case for tariffs to be removed and that ‘considerable efforts’ have been made to increase border security, specifically regarding fentanyl. Carney added there is ‘more work to do’ in making the case that tariffs aren’t good for Americans either.
But the Canadian delegation left the meeting with a clearer understanding that the president really thinks it would be a good idea for Canada to become the 51st state — these are not just comments designed to provoke, the official said.
Trump, however, conceded it “takes two to tango” and it’s not likely to happen with the vast majority of people in this country steadfastly opposed.
The prime minister also relayed to the president over lunch that his tariffs on Canadian goods need to be dismantled if there’s going to be a new trading arrangement between the two countries, as both leaders discussed there should be, the official said. Any trade “deal” for Canada must include the U.S. lifting its tariffs.
While Carney, his team and most Canadians at home were seized with the 51st state taunts and Trump’s punishing tariffs, the president himself was eager to break bread with Carney and discuss global issues that are unfolding on his watch, namely the Russia-Ukraine war, hostility with China and the situation in Iran, the official said.
The official said Trump wanted to get Carney’s perspective on issues that the president is preoccupied with as he tries to fulfil his campaign promise to swiftly bring the war on Ukraine to an end and tamp down Iran’s nuclear ambitions — two issues that are proving to be particularly challenging for the administration.
Trump also asked Carney to weigh in on Israel and Gaza — although there was relatively little talk about that issue, the official said — and the Houthis in Yemen, which the president spoke about at some length in front of the White House cameras in the public portion of their get-together.
The fact that the president sought input from Carney on these files was seen, the official said, as an “encouraging sign” that Trump respects Canada’s new leader and regards him as a worthy equal.
It’s normal for world leaders to discuss foreign policy issues and bounce ideas off one another, and Trump’s willingness to do that with Carney at their first meeting was another proof point that the day was a relative success, the official said.
Trump did not have a specific ask from Canada on these foreign files, the official said.
Prime Minister Mark Carney called his first face-to-face meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump ‘wide-ranging’ and ‘constructive,’ despite Trump saying there’s nothing Canada can do to remove U.S. tariffs.
While global affairs took up a large part of the luncheon, Carney and Trump also spoke about issues closer to home, including fentanyl — the apparent reason why the U.S. slapped big tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China earlier this year.
The official said Trump is personally very “conversant” on the issue and the two leaders had a fairly detailed discussion about cartels and the supply chains that are fuelling the drug crisis. In Canada alone there have been 50,928 apparent opioid toxicity deaths since 2016.
One of Trump’s senior advisers, Stephen Miller, was on hand for the lunch and spoke about the drug issue as well, the official said.
Carney used the fentanyl portion of the conversation to again gently press the point that Canada is just not a major source of the drug, and the government’s billion-dollar border plan has resulted in a meaningful decline in the flow of illegal narcotics and migrants, the official said.
The latest figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) show five kilograms of fentanyl have been seized at the northern U.S. border so far this year — compared 3,040 kilograms at the southwestern one.
Canada’s border progress should result in the fentanyl-related tariffs being lifted, Carney told Trump, according to the official.
It’s clear that will be a conversation for another day, the official said.
Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson says experience and preparation were essential for Prime Minister Mark Carney to navigate his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House.
Besides fentanyl, the president showed a particular interest in the Arctic, the official said.
And, at one point, the conversation hinged on energy and critical minerals — topics Canada is always happy to talk about because it shows the Americans that this bilateral relationship is not just about trade but also security and defence, the official said.
In his public remarks, Trump said he was happy to hear Canada will spend more on defence and acknowledged the country buys a lot of U.S.-made equipment.
“We’re protecting Canada if you ever had a problem,” he said.
