PResident Donald Trump's meetings with foreign leaders rarely open according to the script. Only Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, asked, the recent Oval Office visited Home Approval ratings are ticked up. Now, canada turn.
On Tuesday, newly elected prime minister Mark Carney will be the latest leader to walk to the theater with Trump's White House's high bet. But for the people, the dangers feel unique: Trump floats that Canada's idea became a 51st state, suggested that this prime minister should be called “governor,” and imposed the mobilized tariffs that forced one of the most powerful relationships in the world trade.
“He's going to lose more than he needs to get,” said Robert Bothwell, a professor of the University of Toronto of Canadian history and international relations, warning that Carney's dangers became the next foreign leader used as a political prop. “Zelensky's preceding is not encouraging.”
Carney insisted he was going to Washington to “get the best deal for Canada” and to meet what he called “immediate trade pressure.” But even before the first handshake, Trump rang. “I'm not sure what he wants to see in me,” the President told reporters on Monday. “I think he wants to make a deal. Everything is doing.”
Only the optics are at risk for Carney, who won the office with a promise to stand for Trump. His electoral mandate was to backlash with the president's economic invasion, rhetoric slights, and a clear disregard for Canada's sovereignty. But despite the Bravado campaign, experts say that if the Tuesday meeting becomes a vision, the injury may last.
“The people are hoping that he will not be obedient,” Bothwell said. “And if Trump is not in the line in public, then Carney's job is to shake her head and say, 'Well, no, I don't agree.'”
The pressure on Carney to avoid a moment like Zelensky can be pale. The leader of Ukrainian, though eventually beat political at home, walked to a meeting with Trump in late February with many foreign policy analysts described as a “trap” – emphasizing Trump's hunger for dominance over bilateral encounters. But unlike Zelensky, Carney came to Washington as the leader of a closer ally – but one Trump was openly joined. His offhand comments on integration and trade penalties set alarms on alarms in Canadian diplomatic circles.
“I didn't really do it,” Trump said in an interview on time on April 22 when asked about Canada's 51th state, claiming that the US loses $ 200 to $ 250 billion a year supporting it by military spending and a trading shortage, whose checkers cannot be proven. “I asked someone I called Governor Trudeau. I said, 'Why? Why do you think we are losing a lot of money that supports you? Do you think it's right?
Trump added: “We don't need their wood, we don't need their energy – we don't need anything from Canada. And I'm saying that the only way this really works is for Canada to be a state.” He also described the border between the two countries as a artificially drawn line Which prevents economic integration and security cooperation.
Speaking after his electoral victory, Carney said his country “never” bear fruit in the United States: “As I warned in the months, America wanted our land, our resources, our water, our country,” he said on April 29. “But these are not threats.
For Carney, the timing is both worthless and rugged. With a powerful liberal minority in Parliament and no floating elections, he has a few rooms to take risks, says Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montréal. “Before the federal election, it would be a bad idea for Prime Minister Carney to visit the White House, as it was a dangerous proposal from a electoral stance,” Béland said. “Now that the liberal has a powerful minority government in terms of chairs and that new federal elections are not likely anytime soon, he can get the risk of meeting with President Trump, even if the Mercurial style of the latter should remain a concern for the Prime Minister and his team.”
However, Bothwell said, “Anyone who looks at the Zelensky event should think twice before arriving at the Oval Office and letting Trump attack and follow you.”
Carney, for his part, showed a little appetite of respect. Since office, he has declared the end of the time of automatic US-Canada integration and has emphasized relationships with the UK and France. “Our previous relationship, based on the ever -increasing integration, is over,” he said at a press conference on Friday. Carney added that he planned to use his meeting with Trump to discuss military spending and the 25% tariffs he conducted against Canadian exports, including vehicles, auto, steel and aluminum parts – which could threaten Hundred -a thousand jobs and prompted Canada to announce a series of revenge of 25% tariffs on US imports. “It will be a complex conversation,” he said.
But even Carney's supporters acknowledge that the symbolic asserted sovereignty in front of the cameras is not the same as talking to tariff rollbacks behind closed doors-especially when Trump pushed for an early US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, originally scheduled for 2026. in future economic.
However, Carney manages the expectations. “Don't expect white smoke outside of that meeting,” he said Friday. But in Trump's White House, the goal can be simpler – and more difficult: not embarrassed.
“President Trump is unpredictable and he can move his positions and rhetoric very fast,” Béland said. “He also cares about optics and personal relationships with other world leaders … For Prime Minister Carney, the most important thing is to stand on his basis and avoid public shame.”
