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Mark Carney has urged Europe to deepen its economic alliance with Canada as Ottawa tries to break its dependence on the US following the collapse of trade talks with Donald Trump.
In an interview with the FT, Canada’s prime minister called on the 10 EU member states that have not yet ratified the bloc’s nine-year-old trade deal with Canada to do so, saying closer ties would make all sides “more resilient, more independent” and more prosperous.
Carney will travel to Strasbourg to address the European parliament on Thursday.
He spoke to the FT on the eve of an investor summit in Toronto, where he will host Wall Street firms and Chinese companies and pitch Canada as a safe bet against global volatility while the US president threatens allies with more tariffs and upends long-term alliances.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s the US, Canada, any country around the world, risk is increasingly being priced [in],” Carney told the FT on Monday.
The Europe trip and Toronto summit come as trade relations between Washington and Ottawa worsen with tit-for-tat tariffs imposed in recent weeks. Trump has mocked Carney and labelled Canada a “51st state”, prompting popular anger across the US’s second-largest trading partner.
“You’re at war when you’re attacked, and we got attacked,” the prime minister said last month after trade talks with the US collapsed.
Carney has courted investment from China and India and used a Davos speech this year to rally the world’s “middle powers” against a US-dominated world order that he said was undergoing “rupture, not transition”.
But he appeared to offer an olive branch to the US in his interview with the FT, saying his overtures to investors in China and allies in Europe were not a deliberate stance against the US, Canada’s largest trading partner.
“We are about what we’re for, not what we’re against,” Carney said. “It’s not a reaction in any way, shape or form to what’s going on in the US.”
The Liberal leader also brushed aside Washington’s criticism of Ottawa’s courting of Beijing, which is sending senior officials to the Toronto summit.
“I take note that the president of the United States is welcoming President Xi [Jinping] for a state visit,” he said, referring to the Chinese leader’s summit in Washington this month.
“The US has deeper co-operation with China, far deeper co-operation with China than Canada does,” Carney said.
Ottawa hopes the Toronto summit, akin to Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative, will kick-start $1tn in foreign investment over the next five years. Carney will tout more than 150 projects in mining, energy and AI to investors ranging from Wall St titans to the China Investment Corporation and Africa’s Dangote Group — and pitch Canada’s stability as a commercial partner.
“We’re a country that honours its commitments,” he said. “We have the most precious commodity, which is trust.”
The prime minister said a closer alliance with Europe was the best approach for a world of increasing uncertainty.
The trade agreement struck in 2017 has not been ratified by 10 of the EU’s 27 member states amid concerns over Canadian agricultural exports hurting European farmers.
Carney said the deal was “de facto in operation, even in those jurisdictions where they’re not ratified”, but the ties could go far deeper if the holdouts signed up.
“I would like to use this opportunity to encourage them to do so,” he said.
“It is a positive initiative because it’s good for Europe, it’s good for Canada, it will make us more sovereign, make us more resilient, more independent, as well as more prosperous,” he said.
Canada and the EU have agreed to work on agreements covering trade, security and regulations, critical raw materials, energy and clean technologies, visa liberalisation and financial systems.
A meeting next month in Montreal aims to advance the talks.
During his trip to Europe, Carney will also travel to Britain to meet his UK counterpart Andy Burnham, who he said was “off to a very strong start”.
Carney also said he was confident that US talks could restart, despite last month calling on American officials to “stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough” to allow for proper trade diplomacy.
“When the right opportunity comes, we’ll sit down and negotiate,” he told the FT.
