Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he asked President Trump during their meeting Tuesday to stop calling his neighbors to the north the 51st state, insisting the president will not get his “wish.”
In a press conference at the Canadian Embassy following his meeting at the White House, a reporter asked Carney if he pushed Trump to stop calling Canada the 51st state because it offends Canadians, and the new prime minister responded “yes.”
“Today,” he said of when he pushed back on Trump’s 51st state remark, and added “exactly what you just said” when pressed for specifics on the comment to the president.
Trump has refused to back off on talk of Canada potentially joining the U.S., but he appeared friendlier toward Carney than he had been in recent months toward former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom he repeatedly mocked and called “governor.”
“The president has made known his wish about that issue for some time. I’ve been careful always to distinguish between wish and reality,” Carney told reporters.
He said he would not speak for Trump when asked for the president’s response.
“We’ll see, look, I don’t know. He’s the president, he’s his own person. I would go back to showing the difference between a wish and a reality,” Carney said. “We’re very clear, I’ve been very clear publicly consistently. I’ve been clear in private. I was very clear again in the Oval Office, have been clear throughout.”
“The president, he understands that we’re having a negotiation between sovereign nations and that we will only pursue and accept a deal that is in the best interest of Canada, not just in the short term but in the medium and long term for Canada,” he added, referring to negotiations over tariffs.
Carney said that Trump was willing to discuss lowering tariffs on Canadian goods and said he would follow up “in the coming weeks” about a trade deal. Trump, while speaking to reporters alongside Carney before the meeting, said there was nothing the prime minister could do to lift the tariffs on Canada.
The Trump administration has imposed 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, though certain imports covered under the trade deal between the U.S., Canada and Mexico that was signed in 2020 are exempt.
Meanwhile, Trump officials have said they are negotiating with other countries about “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of other trading partners, including allies such as India, South Korea and Japan, during a 90-day pause on those tariffs.
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