CAnada waited with a stained breath while Prime Minister Mark Carney was foot in the oval office on Tuesday at a meeting for ages.
Barely a week earlier, Carney, who had promised to retaliate against the mockery and threats from Donald Trump to make Canada the “51st state”, resurrected his liberal party against an opponent similar to Maga in an amazing reversal of the 25 points.
Trump knew it. He opened the meeting by adage It was a “great honor” to show Carney. Then he pivoted himself for himself. “As you know, he won a very great election in Canada, And I think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him. His party lost a lot, and he ended up winning. So I really want to congratulate him. It was probably one of the greatest feedback in the history of politics, perhaps even more than mine. »»
At the beginning, Trump took a tone, if not friendship, then at least something approaching the limits of naked respect. Memories of the ambush of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were still fresh. “It's very friendly, it will not be like … we had another little explosion with someone else. It was very different … it's a very friendly conversation. “
A nation sigh of relief. The question is not a simple question of pride or national vanity, although this is part of it. Trump conceded that the use of military force to annex Canada is “very improbable“But he still has the power of Scupper 1 dollars billion a year in the trade.
Find out more: How Canada hung on to the American economy
During the elections, Carney ran against Trump as much as he made his conservative opponent Pierre Hairyvre. The Liberals whipped the slogan “Fort Canada” and the nationalist rallying cry “to flow. “Carney has sworn not to meet Trump until the president respected Canadian sovereignty. warned“Try to break us, so that America can own us.”
He was much more conciliatory on Tuesday. Carney is now a diplomat and statesman, not a politician on the Husts. “You are a transformational president,” he said about Trump, “focused on the economy, with relentless accent on the American worker, the security of your borders, the end of the scourge of fentanyl and other opioids, and to secure the world.”
It was, as some said On social networks, a “elbows” moment.
Carney avoided taking bait for a large part of the meeting. Trump spoke most of the time; The Prime Minister was seated there, letting the president hold the court. Later, in private, during a working lunch, Carney would work to establish a program to renegotiate the commercial relationship and, hopefully, take measures to reduce the number or rate of prices.
As expected, the question of making Canada the 51st “darling” state appeared. North of the 49th parallel, it is a non-starter, to put it slightly. Here, Carney was prepared. “Well, if I can, as you know, real estate, there are places that are never for sale,” he said. “We are sitting in one now,” he added, referring to the White House. Trump nevertheless pressed the question with a “never saying”; Carney then blocked the word “never” Five times. But that was everything.
At a press conference after the meeting at the Canada Embassy, Carney said there was a “concrete way” for both, a mutual desire to move forward with a discussion on trade and other questions. He described the negotiations of “complexes”. Asked about his previous more conflicting comments about Trump, Carney dodged the question.
Carney has made a rapid transformation of the activist, if you will forgive the term, governor. The White House visit was not so much “elbows” as “watch your elbows”. But he nevertheless softens his line on Trump.
Carney and his team recognize that there is a line to walk, a dance to dance. They get Trump with Trump on his face is more difficult than talking about facing a mercantilist American president in front of a sympathetic house front. The alternative goes to the other, alone, against the world hegemon and its uncompromising president.
It would be a Herculean and stupid company for any nation – and certainly Canada and its Prime Minister.
