Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to DW on Friday after talks in Montreal with European Union leaders seeking to hammer out details of a new, closer partnership between Canada and the EU.
Amid difficult negotiations with US President Donald Trump, representing Canada’s biggest trading partner, Carney said that he and his compatriots had come to realize the country was too dependent on the economic powerhouse to the south.
“The lesson we’ve taken, Canadians as a whole, is we’re overdependent on the United States. Too closely connected to the United States. And we need to build our strength here at home and diversify and deepen our partnerships with like-minded countries internationally,” Carney said.
What did Carney say about EU talks and closer ties to the bloc?
An EU delegation led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa held talks with Carney and other Canadian officials in Montreal on Friday.
They’re discussing the plans floated by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to forge what she called an “associate membership” — a status that does not yet exist for any other country — even as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government resists creating this label. Carney seemed to speak in its favor.
“Well, I think the advantage of what we’re doing is that a few things are absolutely clear, irrespective of the exact terminology that’s used. President von der Leyen uses associated membership. We use associated membership,” he told DW’s Katharina Kroll at Port of Montreal Tower.
“What does that mean? It means the closest possible partnership without being a full member of the European Union, because Canada is not in Europe geographically and therefore cannot have accession.” Carney said.
What scope for EU-Canada cooperation does Carney see?
Asked if he was looking to create a “new transatlantic bloc without the US,” Carney said it was more about diversifying and deepening Canada’s other partnerships than excluding by far its largest trading partner.
“We’re both partners of the United States, obviously close partners, alliance partners in NATO. And there are many, many opportunities for cooperation with the United States,” he said. “But in many cases, there’ll be much deeper cooperation for Canada between Canada and Europe than Canada and the United States.”
He mentioned both existing areas of cooperation like the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), calling it “one of the most successful free trade agreements in the world,” and also pointed to research cooperation and programs like Horizon Europe enabling student exchanges.
But Carney also pointed to areas where the two sides could seek to expand cooperation, naming areas like space technologies, artificial intelligence and critical minerals.
Is Canada concerned the talks could alienate the US, or Trump?
Despite his well-documented difficulties with Donald Trump — perhaps most crudely exemplified by Trump’s attempts to unilaterally rename Lake Ontario, or his posting AI videos imagining him as an ice hockey player beating Carney up in a fight — Carney said US-Canadian ties were too deep to be derailed by any governments or prime ministers or presidents.
“The bounds between Candians and Americans are longstanding. They’re very strong. And big elements of that will be maintained regardless of the government in Canada, the government in the United States, the combination of the two,” he said.
Asked about the best way to deal with Trump, Carney said it was “to be direct, to be clear, to be absolutely clear about your bottom lines are.” He said it was important to show respect but also to continue to bring “the negotiations back to the core issues.”
But he said the tensions with Trump had demonstrated the need to diversify and to seek Canada’s other most natural partners around the world.
He acknowledged that no matter the nature of the talks with the EU, “the scale of the relationship with the United States” would be “very hard to replace.”
Asked if he was concerned that the talks could expose him to further tariffs or other punitive measures from the Trump administration, Carney said “we’ve been living with this for some time.”
“There have been many justifications for trade action against Canada that the United States has had,” he said. “Our view is that all of them are unjustified under our trade agreement.”
Carney said the crucial message, also for the Trump White House, was the talks with Brussels concerned a “positive association” and partnership “to help solve global problems” and face up to global challenges.
“It’s not against somebody. It’s for. It’s a positive act,” he said.
DW’s Katharina Kroll conducted the interview in Montreal.
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