Trump Tones Down His Rhetoric About Canada After Call With Its Leader

 

Trump Tones Down His Rhetoric About Canada After Call With Its Leader

 

The president and Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, spoke for the first time on Friday and promised to begin negotiations on trade.

 

Ian Austen

By Ian Austen

Reporting from Ottawa

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/us/politics/trump-canada-carney.html

March 28, 2025

 

President Trump toned down his rhetoric about Canada on Friday after his first telephone call with its new prime minister, Mark Carney.

 

References to the “governor” of the 51st U.S. state that once punctuated Mr. Trump’s social media posts about Justin Trudeau, the previous prime minister, were absent, and the president instead used Mr. Carney’s proper title and his given name.

 

And after offering positive comments online, the president later suggested to reporters that Canada was not among the nations he believed have treated the United States unfairly in trade.

 

Mr. Trump has promised to impose on April 2 a variety of tariffs on American trading partners, including new ones against Canada. “Many countries have taken advantage of us,” but not Canada, Mr. Trump said.

 

He added: “I think things will work out very well between Canada and the United States.”

 

Earlier, in a social media post, the president described his call with Mr. Carney on Friday as “an extremely productive call, we agree on many things.”

 

Mr. Carney, the former central banker of England and Canada, became prime minister on March 14 after succeeding Mr. Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party. Mr. Carney is now in the midst of an election campaign in which the dominant issues have been the response to Mr. Trump’s trade policy targeting Canada and the anger over the president’s repeated calls for the country’s annexation.

 

After Mr. Trump announced earlier this week a 25 percent tariff on imported cars and parts, Mr. Carney suggested on Thursday that Canada would re-evaluate its interdependent economic relationship with its neighbor because “it is clear that the United States is no longer a reliable partner.”

 

Mr. Carney added: “It is possible that, with comprehensive negotiations, we will be able to restore some trust. But there will be no turning back.”

 

After Friday’s conversation, Mr. Carney also took a less inflammatory approach to relations with the United States. At a campaign event in Montreal, he said that the call was “positive, cordial, constructive — exactly what we want.”

 

“We made progress today, but this is the beginning of negotiations,” Mr. Carney said, adding that the president did not offer to remove the auto tariff on Canada, or the tariffs on Canadian steel or aluminum.

 

Both leaders said that they had agreed, as Mr. Trump put it, “to begin comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship” after the Canadian election on April 28.

 

In the interim, Carney said that talks between Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, and Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s trade minister, “will intensify to address immediate concerns.”

 

The president’s repeated calls for annexation did not come up, Mr. Carney said.

 

“The president respected Canada’s sovereignty today,” Mr. Carney said.

 

However, not all of the Trump administration’s talk about Canada on Friday was positive.

 

When asked if the United States still intended to impose tariffs on Canada next week, Mr. Trump said he would “absolutely follow through.”

 

And in Greenland, Vice President JD Vance echoed Mr. Trump’s earlier complaints about Canada, saying that it has imposed “an unfair set of rules” on the United States. He also said, “There is no way that Canada can win a trade war with the United States.”

 

Asked about the apparent change in tone from President Trump toward Canada, Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader and Mr. Carney’s nearest rival in next month’s election, said that “it’s clear that the president would like to keep the Liberals in power.

 

“They’ve been very good for his agenda,” Mr. Poilievre said. “He wants to take our money and our jobs, and Liberals have helped him do it.”

 

Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times based in Ottawa. He covers politics, culture and the people of Canada and has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at austen@nytimes.com. More about Ian Austen