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Kathmandu. Canada’s newly appointed Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to travel to Paris and London on Monday to seek friendship in the face of US President Donald Trump’s attacks on Canada’s sovereignty and economy.
Carney is making his first foreign trip, deliberately visiting the capital cities of two countries that shaped Canada’s early existence. At his swearing-in ceremony on Friday, Carney said the country was built on the foundation of three peoples: French, English and Indigenous, and that Canada was fundamentally different from the US and would “never be part of the United States in any shape or form.”
“The Trump factor is the reason for this trip. The Trump factor dominates everything else Carney has to deal with,” said Nelson Wiseman, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. The 69-year-old former central banker will meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Monday and then travel to London.
He will meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London to try to coordinate trade diversification and possibly a response to Trump’s tariffs. He will also meet with British King Charles III. Charles III is Canada’s head of state. Carney, who is also a former governor of the Bank of England, is making the trip to England a bit of a homecoming.
He is the first non-citizen to be appointed to the role in the bank’s more than 300-year history. Carney will then travel to the edge of Canada’s Arctic before returning to Ottawa to “reaffirm Canada’s Arctic security and sovereignty.” He is expected to announce his election there within days.
Carney said he would be open to meeting with Trump if he respected Canada’s sovereignty. He said he had no immediate plans to visit Washington but hoped to speak with the president by phone soon. Trump’s sweeping 25 percent tariff and his promise to make Canada the 51st U.S. state have angered Canadians.
Many are avoiding buying American goods as much as possible. Carney’s government is reviewing the purchase of American-made F-35 fighter jets in light of Trump’s trade war. The ruling Liberal Party looked set for a historic election defeat this year until Trump declared economic war and repeatedly said Canada should become the 51st state.
Now the party and its new leader may be on top. Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, said Carney would be wise not to meet Trump. “There’s no point in going to Washington,” Bothwell said. “The result, as (former Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau’s behavior has shown, is a crude attempt by Trump to insult his guests. Nor can you sit there and have a rational conversation with someone who repeats falsehoods.” Trump demands respect, Bothwell said, “but it’s often a one-way street, asking others to abandon their self-respect and bend to his will.”
Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it’s crucial for Canada to diversify its trade amid the ongoing trade war with the United States. More than 75 percent of Canada’s exports go to the United States. According to Beland, Arctic sovereignty is also a key issue for Canada.
“President Trump’s aggressive rhetoric about both Canada and Greenland, and the apparent rapprochement between Russia and the United States, a powerful Arctic power under Trump, have raised concerns about our control over this remote but highly strategic region,” he said.
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