U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney raise their glasses at a dinner with leaders in Gyeongju, South Korea, Wednesday. Trump said he will not speak with Carney at the APEC summit.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Donald Trump is playing down the chances of a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney at a South Korean summit this week after he broke off trade talks with Canada and threatened to hike punitive tariffs on Canadian imports by 10 per cent.
However, the U.S. President ended up sitting right across from Mr. Carney at a small, eight-seat dinner Wednesday night hosted by Korean President Lee Jae Myung.
Both Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump are in the South Korean city of Gyeongju for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The two men acknowledged each other at the Wednesday dinner when Mr. Trump sat down. They made finger guns at each other and smiled, exchanging pleasantries.
In a post on the social media site Truth Social beforehand, however, the U.S. President went out of his way to emphasize he wasn’t in the Asian country to see Mr. Carney.
“For those that are asking, we didn’t come to South Korea to see Canada!” he wrote from the city of Gyeongju where he had meetings planned with world leaders including the presidents of South Korea and China.
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Mr. Carney, for his part, was asked on the way into the dinner if he had any message for the U.S. President. Instead of answering the question he said he had something to say to his Korean host Mr. Lee: “I’m very happy to be here.”
Mr. Trump broke off trade talks with Canada last week, citing an Ontario government TV ad that criticized his protectionist tariffs. After it aired during Game 1 of the World Series, he announced he would boost tariffs on Canadian imports by another 10 per cent.
Both Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump attended the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, but did not meet there. Mr. Carney told reporters Monday he hadn’t spoken with Mr. Trump since Thursday, when the President terminated negotiations over a slew of tariffs he has imposed on Canada.
South Korean protesters hold placards reading “No Trump” during a rally against his visit.JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images
But the Prime Minister has arranged a meeting with another counterpart: Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Mr. Carney will meet Mr. Xi Friday at the APEC summit. The meeting is set to happen only days after the Prime Minister told an Ottawa crowd that his government would double exports to non-U.S. markets over the next decade.
In addition to U.S. tariffs on non-USMCA-compliant goods, Mr. Trump has imposed a number of sectoral tariffs that affect Canadian industry disproportionately, including a 50-per-cent levy on steel and aluminum and a 25-per-cent levy on automobiles. Softwood producers are facing levies totalling more than 45 per cent.
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Canada and China are also in the middle of a trade war after Beijing retaliated earlier this year for tariffs Ottawa had placed on Chinese electric vehicles, steel, and aluminum. The Canadian government had imposed those levies in conjunction with the former Biden administration in the name of protecting the North American auto industry from what they called subsidized and overproduced imports.
Beijing’s retaliation for tariffs Ottawa imposed on Chinese EVs and steel and aluminum is causing widespread pain across Canada. China has imposed tariffs on canola seed, canola oil, canola meal and peas as well as 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian seafood and pork products.
More to come.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is defending the government ad campaign that led U.S. President Donald Trump to end trade talks.
The Canadian Press