Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visited the White House on Tuesday for his first sit-down with Donald Trump, where he told the President that Canada would never be for sale.
Jon Parmenter, a professor of North American history at Cornell University, says the meeting yielded “mixed outcomes” that fell short of a substantial reset of relations between the U.S. and Canada.
Parmenter says: “On the one hand, by refusing to drop talk of the United States’ potential annexation of Canada, describing the border as an ‘artificially drawn line,’ and prefacing the meeting with a social media post asserting that the United States needed ‘nothing’ from Canada but its friendship, President Trump demonstrated his continued willingness to antagonize the broader Canadian public.
“On the other hand, Prime Minister Carney managed to make clear that Canada was not, and never would be ‘for sale,’ and managed to extract from the President promises of continued friendship between the two nations and continuing negotiations on a range of issues, particularly U.S.-imposed tariffs.
“As a result of this meeting, we can detect a more constructive tone from the President than witnessed in his verbal exchanges with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but it is also apparent that a great deal of work remains to restore stability and predictability to the longstanding relationship between these two nations."
