Liberal Leader Mark Carney reacted to his phone conversation with U.S. President Trump today, calling the discussion “cordial.” According to Carney, Trump “respected Canada’s sovereignty” during their conversation.
While speaking with reporters at the Montreal Port on Friday, Carney said that his conversation with Trump was “in his words ‘very productive’, my words ‘very constructive,’ they mean the same thing.”
“It was a very cordial, substantive call,” he said. “This was a call between two leaders of their respective governments, between two sovereign nations. The spirit of the call was cordial and focused on making progress and that’s why you had several things. One is an agreement, which is what I wanted and what I think he wanted as well.”
Carney said the “agreement” was to have a “comprehensive discussion on our broader economic and security partnership” in the future.
Trump commented on their discussion as well with a social media post where called the phone call “extremely productive.”
“I just finished speaking with Prime Minister Mark Carney, of Canada. It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors, that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada. Thank you for your attention to this matter!,” wrote Trump on Friday.
According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, “In the interim, the leaders agreed that conversations between the Minister of International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs and President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada, Dominic LeBlanc, and the United States Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, will intensify to address immediate concerns.”
When asked to comment on Trump’s threats about annexing Greenland, Carney said that he “respects the sovereignty of Denmark and the sovereignty of Greenland by extension. We are an Arctic nation.”
Carney then took the “opportunity” of the question to reiterate his government’s commitment to an over-the-horizon Arctic radar system to reinforce Arctic sovereignty, if elected, and criticized Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for not taking Arctic security “seriously.”
However, Poilievre pledged to double the country’s northern military presence by building a fully-fledged Arctic military base and purchasing two more icebreakers, all while cutting foreign aid to pay for Canada’s northern defence in February.
Carney was also asked whether any decisions were born out of his meeting with the premiers which also took place Friday for “just under an hour and a half” and he said that its purpose was “largely to allow him to debrief the premiers on where we stood.”
Additionally, he said it was to discuss the countermeasures that the Government of Canada could take and “to get their input on that”
“Our response to these latest tariffs is to fight, to respond and to build,” said Carney. “what exactly the U.S. does next isn’t clear but what is clear is that we as Canadians have agency. We have power.”