U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’s working on a trade deal with Prime Minister Mark Carney that he believes will be well-received by Canadians, telling reporters assembled for their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office that the people of this country “will love us again.”
Carney, Trump and a cadre of officials from both sides met for a face-to-face meeting and luncheon at the White House to try and hammer out some sort of resolution to the U.S. trade war that has wreaked havoc on critical sectors like steel, aluminum, auto manufacturing and forestry.
Asked if Canada will secure any concessions or leave today’s meeting empty-handed, Trump said: “I think they’re going to walk away very happy,” and added later that on trade, “we’re going to especially treat Canada fairly.”
“The people of Canada will love us again,” Trump said, with Carney looking on during an impromptu news conference ahead of their meeting. “Most of them still do, I think — they love us.”
WATCH | Canadians ‘will be very happy,’ says Trump: 
‘I think they will be very happy’ says Trump on potential deal with Canada
Speaking in the Oval Office alongside Prime Minister Mark Carney, U.S. President Donald Trump says Canada ‘will walk away very happy’ after their talks about a possible tariff deal.
But by late afternoon, it became apparent that a deal is still not in hand and there’s more work to do before there’s any sort of tariff relief for hard-hit sectors.
Carney did not hold his own news conference in Washington, as he did the last time he was in the American capital for a meeting like this, but rather sent out Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc to report that talks are still ongoing and there has been “substantial progress.”
LeBlanc described Tuesday’s discussions as “successful, positive, substantive,” but declined to offer any specifics on why a deal has not yet materialized despite Trump’s earlier upbeat talk.
Carney and Trump instructed LeBlanc and his American counterparts to “continue the conversation and to quickly land deals that will bring, we think, greater certainty,” he said, adding he is “optimistic” the two sides can put something together.
WATCH | LeBlanc ‘optimistic’ on trade progress after Trump-Carney Oval Office meeting: 
LeBlanc ‘optimistic’ on trade progress after Trump-Carney Oval Office meeting
Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, spoke to reporters following Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump’s Oval Office meeting on Tuesday, saying the president acknowledged in a ‘positive way’ the work Canada and the U.S. have been doing to advance their security and economic relationship.
The minister said he is staying in Washington after other members of the Canadian delegation, including Carney, leave Wednesday morning.
He said the continuing talks will centre on the steel, aluminum and energy sectors, as well as how the two sides can cobble something together that “would be in the economic and security interests of both countries.”
Trump earlier stressed he sees Canada as an economic competitor, saying the two countries have “natural conflict” and that he wants to displace Canadian-made cars and steel with domestic supply in the American market.
“It’s a tough situation because we want to make our cars here. We want Canada to do well making cars. We’re working on formulas and I think we’ll get there,” Trump said — a comment that suggests the Americans are weighing whether to impose quotas on products coming in from the U.S., possibly in exchange for tariff relief.
“We want Canada to do great, but there’s a point at which we also want the same business,” Trump said.
Trump also said an entirely tariff-free deal with Canada is not in the cards — “we’re going to have tariffs,” he said — but signalled he is open to renegotiating the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) next year as planned.
That will be a welcome development for the Canadians, who are eager to preserve that agreement, given it allows for free-trade access for the vast majority of Canadian products, with some notable exceptions now that the tariffs are in place.
Carney acknowledged there are areas where the two countries “compete” — he bristled at Trump describing it as a point of “conflict” — and that’s why “we have to come to an agreement that works” on tariffs that is fair to both sides, he said.
WATCH | Carney, Trump take questions at 2nd Oval Office meeting: 
FULL EVENT | Carney, Trump take questions at 2nd Oval Office meeting
Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump took questions in the Oval Office on Tuesday as they met in Washington for a second time, with Trump saying that Canada and the U.S. have a ‘natural conflict’ as the economies compete, but also a ‘mutual love.’
Trump acknowledged at one point that the U.S. is appreciative of the work Carney’s government has done at the border to clamp down on drugs and migrants — two areas he initially used to justify imposing some tariffs on Canadian goods.
“You’ve done well,” he said to the prime minister.
Indeed, Trump and Carney were complimentary of one another throughout the public portion of their meeting.
Calling the prime minister a “very strong” and “world-class leader,” Trump said Carney is “a man who knows what he wants,” while at another point saying in jest that Carney “can be nasty, maybe as nasty as anybody,” when he wants to get something.
Asked why he can’t cut a deal with Carney if he’s so fond of him, Trump said: “I want to be a great man, too.”
Carney said comparatively very little as Trump commandeered the media event, but he praised the Republican leader as “a transformative president” who has helped broker peace in a number of recent conflicts.
WATCH | Nice but ‘nasty,’ Trump says: 
Trump jokes about Carney: ‘He’s a nice man but he can be nasty’
U.S. President Donald Trump, when asked if Prime Minister Mark Carney had done anything that had made things more or less difficult to get a deal, praised Carney but went on to say his praise for his Canadian counterpart isn’t enough to accelerate a trade deal, adding: ‘I want to be a great man, too.’
Trump joked that his next one may be a merger of Canada and the U.S. — a reference to his repeated 51st state comments. “That wasn’t where I was going,” Carney said, as the two men laughed.
Carney acknowledged that there are areas where Canada and the U.S. compete but bristled at Trump describing it as ‘conflict.’ (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Carney told Trump that Canadian companies are willing to invest tens of billions of dollars in the U.S. if his government “gets the agreement that we expect to get,” a nod to Trump’s fixation on announcing instances of foreign companies making big investments in the U.S.
The White House website has a running tally of investments announced in Trump’s second term.
The effects of Trump’s tariffs have been wide-reaching on Canada’s economy.
Ontario’s manufacturing sector has shed thousands of jobs this year. Aluminum exports are down double digits. The forestry sector has also seen job losses and stalled investment decisions.
There have also been knock-on effects in the U.S., where American businesses and, in turn, consumers are actually paying these tariffs.
Trump’s trade program has fuelled inflation south of the border while adding billions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury in what the Tax Foundation calls “the largest tax hike since 1993.”
Carney and Trump agreed over the summer to reach some sort of agreement on tariffs by August — a deadline the two sides blew past.
Since then, the tariff pressure on Canada has only intensified as the Trump administration hikes existing Section 232 tariffs on products like steel and aluminum and adds new ones.
Just last week, Trump announced new Section 232 levies on lumber and timber, kitchen cabinets, vanities and other furniture and upholstered products, arguing Canadian and other imports are somehow a “national security” threat.
On Monday, Trump promised new tariffs on medium- and heavy-duty truck imports, potentially adding to the vehicle assembly sector’s woes.
WATCH | Poilievre on Carney’s visit: 
‘Surely he’s not just going for a photo op’: Poilievre on Carney’s White House trip
Leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre asked Monday during question period if Prime Minister Mark Carney will announce an end to all U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods during his D.C. trip on Tuesday.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote a scathing letter to the prime minister ahead of his meeting, saying Carney has been a disappointment on the trade file and needs to come back from this trip with some wins for Canada.
“If you only return with excuses, broken promises and photo ops, you will have failed our workers, our businesses and our country,” Poilievre said.