EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will leave the G7 summit on Wednesday without a formal meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump as the free-trade agreement between their countries faces an uncertain future.
Canadian leaders typically get a bilateral meeting with American presidents at summits of the world’s leading industrialized democracies, but Carney dismissed any notion of a snub.
“I wouldn’t take a big message from that,” Carney said. “I had seven or eight discussions with President Trump over the course of last 36 hours. I’ll have more today, a wide range of subjects from the economy, relations, his birthday, artificial intelligence, Ukraine, obviously Iran.”
Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January helped make him an international political star, when he declared the global rules-based order over and condemned coercion by great powers on smaller countries. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks and upstaged Trump at the gathering.
Talks on the latest iteration of the North American free-trade pact have reached a crucial moment. The agreement, which has intertwined the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico since the early 1990s, is up for renewal on July 1. Trump said last week he may not renew the deal.
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Preserving the accord is critical for Canada, which sends about 75% of its exports to the U.S.
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister responsible for trade with the U.S., and Janice Charette, Canada’s chief negotiator, met with U.S. Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer at the summit. LeBlanc said they made progress.
LeBlanc has previously said he believes the U.S. might want to have the trade agreement subject to annual reviews, and that the Trump administration might seek to cause uncertainty about its permanence.
French President Emmanuel Macron, the summit host, is the only G7 leader to get a bilateral meeting thus far. Trump also met one on one with the leaders of non-G7 countries of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and India.
Carney noted the host country always meets with the American president.
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Carney used humor to engage with Trump in at least one of their interactions about trade. In a lighter moment, a microphone caught Carney and Trump joking about stealing Macron’s watch.
Carney then moved to a serious exchange about allowing Chinese electric vehicles into Canada. A microphone recorded Carney telling Trump about how less than 3% of Canada’s market, 49,000 cars, will be allowed to enter from China after he made a deal with Beijing.
“It’s a cap, we capped, a hard line,” Carney said. “I thought you’d actually like that.”
“That’s good, I like it,” Trump responded.
READ MORE: Ahead of G7, Canada’s Carney softens tone toward Trump with trade talks at stake
Breaking with the United States, Canada agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars earlier this year in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products. Carney said he spoke to Trump about it twice.
“I’m not surprised that the president of the United States doesn’t follow every detail of every agreement that Canada has, and he likes the structure. Actually, we had a follow-up conversation about it as well,” Carney said.
Peter Boehm, a member of the Canadian Senate who led a number of G7 summits for Canada, said Carney would have had a lot of time for conversations with Trump.
“I wouldn’t see it as a snub,” he said. “It’s amazing how much time leaders can actually have to have conversations.”
