MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The meeting between President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney comes as Trump has repeatedly offended the longtime ally and trading partner. He's imposed tariffs that hit Canada hard and mused about annexing the country. Here's Trump in an interview with NBC's "Meet The Press" on Sunday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If Canada was a state, it wouldn't cost us. It would be great. It would be such a great - we - it would be a cherished state.
MARTIN: When asked if he'll bring up the idea with Carney, Trump said he will always bring it up. So it could be an interesting meeting.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Yeah. NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram joins us now with more. So Trump's choice of words and his policies have played a role in Canada's election. So what has Carney been saying about the - Trump and the U.S.?
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hey. Yeah, so the thing to keep in mind about Carney is that he won this election running with an anti-Trump message. Canadians were voting as Trump was ramping up his tariff war, and Canada's economy is highly dependent on exports to the U.S. And Trump doesn't like that Canada sells more than it buys. And like you heard in that NBC interview - that clip you just played - Trump continues to say he wants to make Canada into America's 51st state. So the election there was seen as a referendum against Trump. Carney has a background in banking and has never held an elected position before, and he ran with the argument that Canada needs to forge its own path and be less reliant on the U.S.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So Carney hasn't been really shying away from Trump's rhetoric at all.
SHIVARAM: Yeah, exactly. I mean, here's what Carney said on election night.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY: America wants our land, our resources...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: No.
CARNEY: ...Our water, our country.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Never.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: No.
(BOOING)
CARNEY: Never. But these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us.
SHIVARAM: It's typical for new Canadian prime ministers to make their first foreign trip to the U.S. But Carney instead chose to go to Europe, and that sends a certain message.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, it sounds like it might. Given the contentious climate, then, how is this meeting supposed to go?
SHIVARAM: So I talked to Asa McKercher. He's a professor of public policy at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. And he says Carney has to play this balancing act - right? - of standing up for Canada but also not irking Trump, which is kind of tricky. But he says Carney could have a less conflicted relationship with Trump compared to his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who Trump often mocked.
ASA MCKERCHER: There seems to be a different tone of emphasis, I think, with Mark Carney as prime minister now. Obviously, Mr. Trump's still talking about the 51st state stuff, but he's not called him Governor Carney. You know, he's called him a very nice man. And I think Mr. Carney certainly looks like kind of a nerdy central bank kind of guy. And I think for Mr. Trump, who obviously likes kind of central casting figures, you know, I think Mr. Carney looks that part.
SHIVARAM: And he also says that the meeting might be a chance for Trump and Carney to kind of have a reset.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, but Carney himself has said that the old relationship between the U.S. and Canada's over.
SHIVARAM: Yeah. You know, it's a pretty unprecedented thing to say, but it speaks to how much relations have soured since Trump's tariff war. Carney told Canadian reporters a few days ago not to expect white smoke out of this meeting on a new trade deal. And, you know, he's referencing the smoke signal that goes up when a new pope is chosen. So he's already tempering expectations. But, you know, at the same time, Canada is already looking for new, more reliable trading partners. There's reports that South Korean companies are pitching sales of military equipment to Canada, which is significant because in the past, Canada's gotten most of their defense products from the U.S.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Deepa Shivaram. Thanks a lot.
SHIVARAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
