Good morning. This is the London Correspondent, Mark Paul, standing in for a few days for Denis Staunton while he is away.
Mark Carney goes nose to nose with Donald Trump
Early this summer my family and I donned silly red plastic ponchos to board a rather uninspiring little boat on the Canadian shore of the Niagara river.
As we sailed upstream, I looked over to my right to see more red-poncho wearers waving down from a holding point above the dock of the Ontario town of Niagara Falls. To my left, another cohort in blue ponchos waved down from the US side – the shore of New York state in a town across the river that is also called Niagara Falls.
Minutes later, I could look only dead ahead as we approached the bottom of the world’s most famous waterfall. The thunderous roar of water filled our ears. The spray made it almost impossible to see. It was intimidating, bewildering and exhilarating all at once.
That must be what it feels like to be a world leader in the crux of a bitter trade dispute with the unpredictable, pugnacious US president Donald Trump.
What lessons can other leaders learn from the nose-to-nose, stubborn approach adopted last week by Canada’s premier, and son of Aughagower, Mark Carney?
In the middle of last week, a trade deal between the two North American nations had seemed close. Trump as much as said so on Wednesday when he lauded an impending “very good deal for both parties”.
Canada also really wanted an agreement. Its economy stalled last year when the trade dispute first arose.
Yet the talks suddenly collapsed on Friday. Carney said his nation was “attacked” by the US with a last-minute ambush of demands. These included concessions from the Canadian car industry, a watering down of protections for Canadian-French culture, and limits on Canada doing trade deals with others, which might have restricted the maple leaf state’s ability to diversify away from the unpredictability of Trump’s US.
“They asked too much and they offered too little,” said Carney over the weekend.
Trump has now imposed 50 per cent tariffs worth $20 billion (€17.1 billion) on an occasionally esoteric list targeting very specific Canadian exports: capes (lest Carney try to be the Superman to Trump’s Lex Luthor?), dog muzzles and Christmas ornaments.
Carney has promised to match the US tariffs “dollar for dollar” although he is unlikely to heed calls in Canada to target the energy industry: oil-rich Alberta has a public vote in October on whether to pursue secession and the Canadian prime minister won’t want to rock that boat.
Trump, too, has something to lose: the Canadian retaliatory tariffs will hardly ease US cost-of-living concerns in advance of crucial US midterm elections in November that, if they go against his party, could crimp some of Trump’s ability to dominate.
From Iran to Ukraine and Russia, world leaders know that entering deal talks of any nature with Trump can bring on whiplash. In the trade sphere specifically, several other countries will be watching Canada’s approach closely to see whether it yields a better (for the Canadians) result.
India, for example, covets a wide-ranging trade agreement with the US to avoid punishing tariffs. The two sides say they are close to an agreement, but, then again, that was the US and Canada last week. Trump wants Indian concessions for the US tech industry.
Brazil, China, Japan, Switzerland: all are among other nations at various stages of trade talks with the US.
Whatever about watching Carney, new UK prime minister Andy Burnham may learn more by doing the opposite of whatever his predecessor, Keir Starmer, did as Britain seeks to unwind US tariffs on metals.
Like a fiscal Neville Chamberlain, Starmer returned from Washington in February 2025 to proclaim to Britons economic peace in their time. A year later, Trump was slagging him off in public as “not Winston Churchill”.
Mexico will also be closely watching the US-Canada bilateral imbroglio. Trump has so far flatly refused to renew the three-way USMCA deal between the three nations that covered $2 trillion of trade.
Carney’s political popularity in his home country, meanwhile, has soared. Standing up to Trump is generally approved by other nations’ electorates.
Though nations with very distinct cultures, the US and Canada still have plenty in common. Among the chaos of the boats bobbing around at the foot of Niagara Falls, you can only tell them apart by the colour of their useless plastic ponchos.
The world waits to see whether it is the reds or the blues who prevail this time. When it comes to tariff wars, however, losing is hard to completely avoid.
Please let us know what you think and send your comments, thoughts or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to denis.globalbriefing@irishtimes.com
