Mark Carney on Trump tariffs: Old Canada-US relationship is ‘over’ 

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the old economic relationship between the U.S. and Canada is “over,” vowing that Ottawa will respond “forcefully” and that nothing is “off the table” over President Trump’s plan to impose additional tariffs on its northern neighbor and other countries around the world.

“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” Carney said during a press conference Thursday. 

“We can give ourselves much more than any foreign government, including the United States, can ever take away. We can deal with this crisis best by building our strength right here at home. It will take hard work. It will take steady and focused determination from governments, from businesses, from labor, from Canadians, we will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States,” the prime minister said, a day after Trump announced that he will impose a 25 percent tariff on foreign car imports set to take effect April 2. 

Trump said Wednesday that car parts not produced in the United States would be subject to a tariff, arguing it will “lead cars to be made in one location.” 

The president contended that the new tariff would boost job growth and inspire foreign vehicle manufacturers to move production to the U.S. In the short-term, the new tariff could cause car prices to go up. 

“We will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere, and we will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations,” Carney said Thursday. 

Carney responded to Trump’s new tariff announcement in a similar fashion Wednesday, characterizing it as a “direct attack” on Canadian workers. 

“This is a direct attack, to be clear, a direct attack on the very workers that I stood in front of, Unifor workers I stood in front of this morning at the Ambassador Bridge, a bridge that is a symbol and a reality up until now, of the tight ties between our two countries — ties of kinship, ties of commerce, ties that are in the process of being broken,” Carney said. 

Trump shot back in the early morning on Truth Social, warning that if the European Union “works” with Canada to “harm” the U.S. economy, the president argued “large scale” tariffs could be placed in response. 

“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 in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had,” Trump wrote Thursday morning.

The Canadian prime minister said Thursday that Ottawa will respond in the ongoing trade war with measures that will have a “maximum” impact on the U.S. and “minimum” implications on its northern neighbor. 

“We will fight the US tariffs with retaliatory trade actions of our own that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impacts here in Canada,” Carney stated. “We will protect our workers and our industries during this difficult period, but above all, we will build a new Canadian economy. We will build Canada strong.” 

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.