Canada, Voice of Others in The New World

 

Canada, Voice of Others in The New World

Deepak Razdan                                                               

7 May, 2025

Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney virtually spoke for most of the world when he met US President Donald Trump in the White House on 6th May, 2025. More than once he told the US President that Canada was not for sale and never would be; almost saying no country in the world was available for sale.

President Trump appeared reluctant to accept Mr Carney’s assertions fully and still said “never say, never,” agreeing at one stage that “it takes two to tango.” Canada’s joining of the United States as its 51st State would look “beautiful” and benefit people of Canada in many ways, including with lower taxation and free military,” Mr Trump argued.

The Canadian Prime Minister, when given a chance to speak, said "some places are never on sale, like White House or the Buckingham Palace. Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it's not for sale."

The US President brought up the subject a couple of times in the meeting, and said “I am a real estate developer,” and the two countries joined together would look great. “It would be a wonderful marriage, they (Canadians and US citizens) like each other a lot, and we are protecting Canada already.”

When a journalist asked how soon the President could initiate Canada’s merger, Mr Trump said “Only time will tell, but I say never say, never, I had many-many things not doable but they have become doable, and doable in a very friendly way. Canada loves us and we love Canada.”

Sitting on the edge of his chair most of the time before the White House media, with some members of his Government by his side, Mr Carney repeated “this 51st State” would not be acceptable to people of Canada. He said his government would be sure spending more on security, and take measures against the business of drugs like fentanyl.

It was apparent from the open meeting, shown live on television, that the leader of the New World, and its creator, Mr Trump was only sympathizing with Canada’s assertion of its sovereignty, and reconciled with the position only for the occasion, not stretching the point unnecessarily.

Although Mr Carney announced Canada would be stepping up its security expenditure, Mr Trump mentioned at length military and economic strength of the US and said that the US was subsidizing Canada heavily by providing it with security.

Mr Carney’s meeting with Mr Trump would go down as the most noteworthy among the meetings the White House hosted for the visiting heads of government. Against speculation how the meeting would go, considering anti-Trump sentiments in the Canadian polls, the gains of the meeting were more on Mr Carney’s side.

The US imported 476 billion dollar goods and services from Canada last year while Canada imported 440 billion dollar goods and services from the US. The US economy is 14 times that of Canada. But some US States depend heavily on Canadian energy exports. One and a half million homes in New York, Michigan and Minnesota get energy from Canadian hydro-power sources.

The US President made lighthearted comments on the election the Canadian Prime Minister had won, although his party appeared losing the election in the beginning of the campaign.  Mr Trump introduced his guest and said the victory in the polls was probably the greatest thing that happened to Mr Carney.

“This was one of the greatest come-backs in politics, may be greater than mine. I want to congratulate him. Canada has chosen a very talented person, a very good person, it is an honour to have him in the Oval Office,” he said.

Thanking the President for his compliments, Mr Carney stood his ground on the “51st State” issue, and was open to discussions on tariffs, security, fentanyl or any other issue.

Mr Trump has never failed to impress the world with his personality and his manner of putting out facts, including this time, although this time he did not insist on the exactness of the figure he gave on the US security subsidy for Canada, thereby scoring a positive point for himself.

Mr Carney’s meetings with Mr Trump, behind or on-camera, give much hope to a large number of nations currently negotiating with the Trump Administration for various bilateral trade deals.

The meeting showed all is not lost really; in a bilateral duel, the stronger party can appear fearsome, but the weaker side may also patiently present its case.

In some ways, Mr Trump appeared restrained during the media interaction with Mr Carney; it is possible the worst may be over as far as the tariffs are concerned.

“We have some tough points to go over, that will be fine. We will be discussing Ukraine and Russia, the war. Both of us want the Ukraine war to stop,” Mr Trump said. It was happy atmosphere.

US is likely to have talks with China later this week, reports said. Asked about China, Mr Trump said “we will be meeting them at the right time.” China is suffering greatly at present because they are not trading with US, he said.

“We had a trade imbalance, more than a trillion dollars, but at present there is a no trading, with 145 per cent tariff on China; we are not losing any money now,” he expressed relief.

Bilateralism is on the upswing in the New World. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer have announced the successful conclusion of a landmark India–UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The two leaders said the agreement between the two big and open market economies of the world will open new opportunities for businesses, strengthen economic linkages, and deepen people-to-people ties.

The agreement provides for large cuts in Indian tariffs on whiskey and car imports from the UK. The Indian government said India will gain from tariff elimination on about 99 per cent of the tariff lines covering almost 100 per cent of the trade value, offering huge opportunities for increase in the bilateral trade between the two countries.

The UK-US talks for a trade agreement are on in Washington. President Trump on Wednesday spoke about giving the world a big surprise in a few days. Speculation would be hard to stop on this clue from the President.

There was nothing to worry about the deals, he said. “We can give 100 deals in a day,” he said. “They have to sign deals, we don’t have to sign the deals; we don’t care about their markets; we want to help countries; we will adjust, we are flexible,” he said.

“In some cases we want countries to open up, in some cases they should drop tariffs; we are not looking to hurt countries, we want to help countries, we want to be friendly with countries,” the US President said.

“India has one of the highest tariffs in the world; we are not going to put up with that, they have already agreed to drop it to nothing. They would not have done this for anybody else but for me,” he said.

“We have been ripped off for 50 years; we are not going to let any country to do this to us anymore,” the US President summed up his country’s expectations.