Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly said on Thursday that Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump are directly communicating as part of Canada’s efforts to convince Washington to remove tariffs.
“We are in a trade war and it’s normal that at the same time that the trade war is taking place, there are also diplomatic negotiations, and that therefore, Prime Minister Carney and President Trump talk to each other,” she told reporters.
The Globe and Mail newspaper earlier quoted the U.S. envoy to Canada as saying the two leaders were secretly holding direct talks to work out a framework for a trade and security deal.
The discussions between Trump and Carney mark a rare instance of direct leader-to-leader negotiation over trade issues.
Tariff War
Trump this week doubled the tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium to 50% from 25%. The move has the potential to hurt Canada, which is the largest seller of the metals to the U.S.
Carney said on Wednesday that the countries were in intense negotiations over the tariffs and that Canada was “preparing reprisals if those negotiations do not succeed”.
Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, told the Globe the two sides were “laying out the perimeters” of a deal that could involve boosting U.S. content in autos, improving U.S. access to Canadian critical minerals and ensuring Canada played a much bigger role in the Arctic.
The talks also include increased defence spending, energy, border security, steel and aluminium as well as stopping the smuggling of fentanyl, the paper cited him as saying.
Carney’s office declined to comment.
In an email, an official at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa said “both the President and Prime Minister, or members of their teams, have publicly acknowledged that there are ongoing conversations”.
Unifor, the country’s largest private sector union, on Wednesday called on Carney to retaliate immediately.
(With inputs from Reuters)
