‘Era of deep ties with US is over’: Canada PM Mark Carney
text_fields
Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday that his country’s era of economic, security and military ties with United State is ‘over’, suggesting how President Donald Trump’s tariff war is hurting their bilateral relations.
Mark Carney’s response came after Trump’s bombshell announcement on Thursday of imposing 25 percent levy on vehicle imports to the United States to come effect next week.
Trump’s increased levy could hurt Canadian auto industry that ensures an estimated 500,000 jobs.
Following Trump’s tariff hike, Mark Carney returned to Ottawa from a campaign for April 28 polls to hold a cabinet meeting to discuss tactics for trade war with the US.
Terming the auto tariff ‘unjustified’, Carney pointed to them breaching ‘existing’ trade deals between both countries and warned Canadians that Trump permanently ‘altered’ their country’s relations with the US.
‘The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,’ Carney was quoted as saying.
Suggesting retaliation against auto tariffs, Carney said Canada’s response to ‘these latest tariffs is to fight, is to protect, is to build’.
‘We will fight the US tariffs with retaliatory trade actions of our own that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impacts here in Canada,’ he was quoted as saying.
Since taking office on March 14, replacing Justin Trudeau as prime minister, Carney has not yet made the phone call with the US president that new Canadian prime minister usually makes.
Trump tariff hike led to drawing international criticism with German’s chancellor Olaf Scholz describing the move as ‘wrong’, according to The Guardian.
France’s finance minister Eric Lombard termed Trump’s tariff hike a ‘ very bad news’ adding that it could force EU to raise its own tariffs.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland said Europe would approach the US ‘not on our knees’ but with common sense.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, called the tariff hike as ‘bad for businesses, worse for consumers’.
Alongside calling the Trump’s move ‘very concerning’ the British prime minister, Keir Starmer said that his government in response would be ‘pragmatic and clear-eyed’.