Carney to speak with Trump after U.S. President reaches out amid new auto tariffs

Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to have his first phone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump in the coming days, and Trump’s commerce secretary said Canada may get some reprieve from automobile tariffs.

Carney said Thursday that the president’s office reached out the previous evening to schedule a call. It would be the first conversation between the two leaders since Carney was sworn in as prime minister earlier this month, as Trump pursued his trade war and repeatedly called for Canada’s annexation.

“I appreciate this opportunity to discuss how we can protect our workers and build our economies,” Carney said from Parliament Hill. “I will make clear to the president that those interests are best served by co-operation and mutual respect, including of our sovereignty.”

The call, which Carney said will take place within days, comes after Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to implement 25 per cent levies on all automobile and auto part imports — his latest move to upend global trade through a massive tariff agenda that pushed some automakers’ stock prices down on Thursday

Trump has said repeatedly he wants Canada to become a U.S. state and has suggested he’ll use “economic force” to make it happen.

The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, also called CUSMA, was negotiated during the first Trump administration to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. It boosted rules requiring that a majority of parts in an automobile be North American in order for the vehicle to be tariff-free.

Trump praised CUSMA at the time it was negotiated as the “best agreement we’ve ever made” — but experts say his expanding tariff assault on Canada and Mexico is undermining the trade pact. The agreement is up for mandatory review in 2026 but few think Trump will wait to start negotiations.

Trump signed the executive order Wednesday to implement duties on automobile imports starting April 3. A fact sheet provided by the White House said automobiles imported under CUSMA will only be tariffed on the value of content not made in the United States.

Trump’s latest move is likely to sow more confusion in the North American automotive sector — a continental industry that sends vehicle parts across borders multiple times before final assembly.

Trump’s growing global trade war pushed some automakers’ stock prices down on Thursday as rattled markets struggled to anticipate the president’s next trade moves.

The president’s tariffs and ongoing talk of annexation have become top political issues in Canada ahead of the April 28 general election vote. Carney interrupted his campaign to return to Ottawa to lead a meeting of the Canada-U.S. relations cabinet committee on Thursday.

Speaking at a campaign event in Coquitlam, B.C., Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said his message to Trump is “stop attacking America’s friends.”

“We will never be the 51st state, but we can, once again, be friends with the United States if the president reverses course on these disastrous tariff threats,” Poilievre said.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called mounting tariffs an “illegal trade war” at a campaign stop in Windsor, Ont., and said it feels like “a betrayal, a gut-punch for absolutely no reason.”

Trump posted on social media Thursday that if “the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA, large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both.”

– With files from Catherine Morrison.