Carney says he’ll speak with Trump ‘when it’s appropriate’

Prime Minister Mark Carney is in no hurry to resume trade talks with U.S. President Donald Trump but will speak again with the president “when it’s appropriate,” Carney said on Sunday.

Carney said he expects to speak with Trump sometime in the next two weeks but otherwise stands ready for when the Americans next knock on Canada’s door to return to the table.

“I look forward to speaking with the president soon, but I don’t have a burning issue to speak with the president about right now,” Carney said.

“When America wants to come back and have conversations on the trade side, we will have those discussions.”

The prime minister made the remarks when speaking with reporters at a news conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he is attending a G20 Leaders’ Summit, which Trump did not attend.

Trump had scuttled talks last month on his punishing tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles after the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff ad blitz across the U.S. that rankled the president.

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Ontario’s ad campaign featured clips of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan warning that tariffs lead to trade wars and hurt the American economy.

The federal Conservatives in Parliament have accused Carney of failing to move the needle on the U.S. tariffs, after Carney campaigned in the spring time as being the best choice to quickly resolve the trade dispute.

“They were elected under false pretences,” Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus said of the Liberal government during Thursday’s question period in the House of Commons.

“They were supposed to find a solution to the problems with Donald Trump, but they have failed miserably.”

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The Liberals have maintained that such trade talks have a natural ebb and flow to them, and that they will eventually resume.

Carney said Sunday he and Trump have both been preoccupied with other matters.

“I’ve been busy. We passed a budget — a budget that’s going to catalyze a trillion dollars of investment. We have launched new trade agreements. We’ve secured new investment in the country of a size not seen, arguably, before,” Carney said.

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“So, we’re busy, he’s got other things to do and we’ll re-engage when it’s appropriate.”

Canada is preparing separately to enter broader talks over the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, known as CUSMA, the country’s most important free trade pact, set to come up for renewal next year.

Canada’s former chief trade negotiator Steve Verheul has warned members of Parliament that the U.S. will likely seek to ramp up pressure on Canada and Mexico during the review by not supporting an extension of the agreement.

“They’re going to try to use that as leverage,” Verheul told a House of Commons trade committee on Oct. 30.

“The period between January and June will be critical to the future of the CUSMA and to our trading relationship with the U.S.”

—with files from Kyle Duggan in Ottawa