If President Donald Trump wanted a fight with Canada, he’s got one — regardless of the friendly relationship the two countries previously enjoyed.
“The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military co-operations, is over,” Canadaian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in Ottawa Thursday. “What exactly the United States does next is unclear. But what is clear is that we, as Canadians, have agency. We have power. We are masters in our own home. We can control our destiny. We can give ourselves much more than any foreign government, including the United States, can ever take away.”
According to a report on Mediaite, Carney’s words are the latest in the growing animus relationship between Canada and the U.S. as the latter draws closer to imposing a 25% tariff on foreign car imports on the former.
Carney said Canada needs to lessen its reliance on the U.S. and called the situation a “crisis.”
“We can deal with this crisis best by building our strength right here at home. It will take hard work. It will take steady and focused determination from governments, from businesses, from labour, from Canadians. We will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States,” the new prime minister said. “We will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere. And we will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations.”
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Carney, who recently took over the prime minister post when former Prime Minster Justin Trudeau stepped down earlier this year, said new negotiations are on the horizon for “The Great White North.”
“We will fight back with everything we have to get the best deal for Canada. We will build an independent future for our country, stronger than ever,” Carney said.
“We will fight the U.S. tariffs with retaliatory trade actions of our own that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impacts here in Canada,” he added, per Reuters.
The effect of these tariffs have yet to be seen.
Trump believes they will boost the U.S. economy, while those on Wall Street are not as confident as automotive stocks plummet — General Motors by 7.4% and Ford by close to nearly 4%, Mediaite reported.
