Carney tells Trump Canada will ‘never’ be for sale as leaders meet at White House

The prime minister has just left the White House, after his lunch with Donald Trump and U.S. officials.

Carney will hold a news conference at the Canadian Embassy in Washington at 3 p.m. ET.

Before the lunch, Carney and Trump answered reporters' questions in the Oval Office, where they addressed trade, Canadian sovereignty and the two countries' defence relationship.

An odd moment from the Oval Office meeting: Donald Trump may be confused about the nationality of hockey’s greatest goal scorer.

Speaking about his love for Canada — “Canada is a very special place to me,” “I love Canada,” and so forth — Trump then transitioned to speaking about a notable Canadian.

“Wayne Gretzky, I mean how good, the Great One,” he said. (Gretzky and Trump are friends, an association for which Gretzky has caught some heat north of the border.)

But then Trump transitioned to talking about another hockey great.

“You happen to have a very, very good hockey player right here on the Capitals … a big tough cookie too, just broke the record, and he’s a great guy.”

Alexander Ovechkin, the Washington captain who broke Gretzky’s goal-scoring record last month, is decidedly not Canadian. He’s Russian, and a supporter of Vladimir Putin.

At the risk of overthinking this, it’s unclear if Trump saying, “You happen to have a very, very good hockey player right here” means he thinks Ovechkin is Canadian, or if he’s just using the royal “you” and talking about hockey players he knows in general.

But either way, it was an odd moment.

Carney, who usually never misses an opportunity to talk about hockey, didn’t intervene.

Frank McKenna, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States, said although Carney “did just fine” in the Oval Office meeting, Trump’s distortions of the truth were worrying.

“He was respectful to our prime minister; he was not respectful to the facts,” McKenna told CBC News’s Rosemary Barton.

During the meeting, Trump repeated his false claim about a $200-billion trade deficit (you can read the fact check on that below).

“We have the largest trade relationship in the world and the smallest trade imbalance, and that’s only because we send them our raw materials to be processed by them,” said McKenna, who was also the premier of New Brunswick from 1987-97. “And that’s not even to speak of services, where they have a massive surplus with us.”

McKenna added that the U.S. relies heavily on Canada for resources like oil, aluminum and potash.

“It’s disrespectful for the president not to acknowledge that Canada does bring something of value to the relationship. That was hard to listen to, quite frankly.”

McKenna also set out his expectations for Carney’s private lunch meeting with Trump.

“I think we need to make them understand, this is a two-way negotiation and we’ve got a lot of issues that we want to put on the table as well. And that will be taking place at this luncheon session.”

Carney, Trump and their delegations are now meeting behind closed doors over lunch, where some details could be hammered out.

For example, both leaders spoke about updating CUSMA — not that anyone expects that to be solved over one meal.

We’ll see how open Carney will be about his private encounters with Trump when he speaks to Canadian reporters later this afternoon.

With Carney and Trump meeting to speak about the economic relationship between their countries today, Statistics Canada released some numbers this morning that give us a sense of how the tariff war is impacting Canadian trade with the U.S.

The bottom line: Canada imported fewer goods from the U.S. in March after hitting its southern neighbour with a slew of retaliatory tariffs, but we also sent fewer exports down south during that time.

The decline in exports to the U.S. was almost completely offset by an uptick in shipments to other countries, according to StatsCan. (It’s worth noting that Canadian exports to other countries are down for the second month in a row, but up compared to this time last year.)

Trump repeated today that Canada and the U.S. have an unfair trade relationship. But Canada maintains a merchandise trade surplus with its southern neighbour — that number was $8.4 billion in March, down from $10.8 billion in February, the agency said.

The Canadian auto industry was watching today’s meeting closely, as it bears the weight a 25 per cent tariff on non-CUSMA-compliant vehicle parts.

“The reality is, we didn’t expect that we were going to come out of today with an agreement or the lifting of tariffs, but it’s a start,” said Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association.

During the meeting, Trump repeated his assertion that the U.S. doesn’t need Canada’s cars. Kingston said that doesn’t square with the supply chain reality.

“We’ve got a deeply integrated supply chain built over the better part of 60 years, and in fact the Americans need the Canadian market just like the Canadian market needs the U.S.,” he said.

He noted that Canada is the U.S.’s largest auto export market, and that the U.S. runs a surplus with Canada in motor vehicles and parts.

“So this is a relationship that works well, and it in fact works better for the U.S. than it does in Canada by virtually every metric,” Kingston argued.

Business associations were hoping to get a reset in the relationship between the leaders of Canada and the U.S.

The tone and substance of the exchange (so far) has given them reason for (some) optimism.

“Today’s chance for a relationship reset was much needed. We are impressed with the tone of the meeting and the momentum toward a reliable, close economic and security relationship. Our two countries working and making things together will be mutually beneficial for decades to come, if we are able to keep discussions like today’s going,” said Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, in a statement.

Remember, it’s not the governments of Canada and the United States that do $1 trillion in trade every year. It’s American businesses and Canadian businesses buying and selling goods.

And those businesses have benefited enormously from the trade relationship.

We have some clarity on where Trump stands. That's one takeaway from an extraordinary, and extraordinarily long, photo op in the Oval Office.

We have a better sense of what the Canada-U.S. conversation might look like in the Carney-Trump era.

In a nutshell: Not easy, not fatal.

On Canadian annexation: Yes, Trump really does dream of Canada being a U.S. state. No, he doesn't expect it to happen soon. He's aware Canadians aren't keen.

On military issues: Yes, Trump resents Canada's military under-spending; No, he wouldn't let another country invade Canada. “We protect Canada. And we always will. That’s not a money thing.” He also welcomed Canada's plans to increase defence spending.

The personalities: Yes, Trump made clear he respects Carney, and wants a good relationship. No, he was not a fan of Justin Trudeau, he admitted.

On trade: Trump likes tariffs. He wants fewer Canadian imports, especially cars, steel and aluminum. On the other hand, he praised the CUSMA pact, and spoke of subtle changes.

It will be up to Carney to make the case for Canada maintaining as much open trade as possible — under CUSMA, or whatever mechanism they negotiate.

We've already seen how Carney will parry the 51st state talk — with a polite insistence that this will never happen.

Carney chose carefully when to interject, often letting Trump rant on various topics.

He twice inserted himself when comments about the 51st state talk were raised.

“Respectfully, Canadians' view on this is not going to change on the 51st state,” he said near the end of the photo op in the Oval Office.

He also chose a moment to remind the president of how important the trading relationship is to both sides.

“We are the largest client of the United States, in the totality of all the goods,” he said.

Carney said there will be a “bigger discussion” about renegotiating a trade deal.

“There are much bigger forces involved,” he said.

Trump called it a very friendly conversation and not like the “blow-up” he had with "somebody else,” a veiled reference to his infamous Oval Office fight with Zelenskyy.

In the Oval Office with Trump, Carney said of Canada, “It’s not for sale,” in an attempt to stop any discussion of Canada becoming the 51st state.

Trump’s response was, “Never say never.” He emphasized the friendship between the two nations and once again put annexation in glowing terms. But he also repeated his assertion that the border between Canada and the U.S. is an “artificially drawn line from many years ago.”

When asked about military force in an NBC interview on the weekend, Trump said it was “highly unlikely” when it comes to Canada. “We're not gonna ever get to that point."

At a news conference in January, he was asked if he was considering military force to annex and acquire Canada. He ruled it out with a “no,” but added he would apply “economic force.”

Tariffs on Canada followed.