Canada won’t be ‘chasing a small deal’ to get U.S. tariff relief, Carney says

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada and the U.S. could resolve the ongoing tariff dispute within “days” if the U.S. side had the “bandwidth and the inclination to go through with it.”

The U.S. has maintained hefty import levies on a number of Canadian goods including steel, aluminum, copper, some automotive parts, lumber and other wood products.

Carney told CBC News: The National that the Canadian side is ready to work on a deal that would see some of those tariffs lifted, but added he’s not interested in quickly achieving a “small deal.”

“We need a good deal in the right time, and what we don’t need is chasing a small deal that disadvantages us,” the prime minister told CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault on Monday.

Carney went on to suggest that a good tariff resolution could be reached soon, but that there needs to be more movement from the U.S. side of the table.

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“We could sit down this afternoon and hammer the whole thing out over the course of 10 days if the U.S. side — which has other things to do, I acknowledge that — had the bandwidth and the inclination to go through it,” Carney said.

“But it takes two to negotiate it through, and they’re not all the way there.”

Later in the interview, Carney suggested countries that quickly worked out some form of tariff relief with the U.S. aren’t happy with the deals they got. A number of countries such as the U.K., Japan and the EU block reached agreements with the U.S. within the last year, but those deals kept some form of tariff on imports to the U.S.

“A lot of countries rushed into deals with the U.S. They weren’t really worth the paper they were written on,” Carney said, though he didn’t name which countries he thinks got a raw deal.

Asked if he thinks any country is happy with the deal they worked out with the U.S., Carney replied “certainly not in private.”

Canadian officials have said that Canada and the U.S. have indicated that a deal was starting to take shape last fall before President Donald Trump abruptly called off official talks in response to a government of Ontario ad that aired in the U.S.

The now infamous ad featured a speech from former U.S. president Ronald Reagan outlining how tariffs impact consumers.

Asked how he manages his relationship with Trump, Carney said the two have “episodic dialogs,” and that he tries to be “straight” with the president.

“There’s no value in misrepresenting your position, sugarcoating things unnecessarily, not being clear on where you’re going to stand,” Carney said.

“[Trump] certainly respects strength, and lots of people like to be flattered, but he can see through obsequiousness, to use a fancy word for it.”

Trump asked Carney for advice on Iran

The prime minister made his first official trip to the U.S. roughly a year ago, shortly after the general election.

While the trip was largely centred on trade, Carney told Arsenault that the first question Trump asked him in private was about Iran.

“At the lunch, the first question the president asked me was about Iran and what I thought he should do about Iran,” Carney said. “So this is an issue that’s been on the mind of this president.”

Carney didn’t say what advice he offered the president at that time. He also reiterated that the White House didn’t consult Ottawa before the recent hostilities in the Middle East began.

The U.S. and Israel began a bombing campaign against Iran in late February that only halted after a ceasefire was declared earlier this month, though no agreement has been reached on terms to end a war.

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Iran has cut off access through the Strait of Hormuz, a key water passage through which a sizable portion of the world’s oil supply moves. The U.S. has also blockaded Iranian ports, which also cuts off shipping traffic through the strait.

Carney said Canada is looking at ways it can help reopen the strait, but argued that there must be a durable ceasefire first.

“We have to be realistic or humble about the scale of our role. We’re not a superpower, but where we can play a role in any conflict in any part of the world, we should try to play that role constructively,” he said.

Carney suggested that Canada could aid allies in removing mines from the Strait of Hormuz once hostilities cease.

“Once there is a ceasefire that has some durability … that’s something we could do,” he said.

You can watch Adrienne Arsenault’s interview with Prime Minister Mark Carney on The National Monday night on CBC TV, CBC Gem and the CBC YouTube page.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carney-interview-trade-tariff-relief-u-s-9.7178960?cmp=rss