Prime Minister Mark Carney’s approach to his Tuesday meeting with Donald Trump is in the spotlight after a flurry of meetings between world leaders and the U.S. president, including a disastrous Oval Office dressing-down of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February.
“He will want to be forthright and to demonstrate to the president that the president can talk to him,” Senator Peter Boehm told CTV News. “He’s going to give him the straight goods in terms of how he sees the economy and the trade partnership.”
Boehm acted as Sherpa at the 2018 G7 in Charlevoix, Que., during Trump’s first term as president, which saw Trump take aim at then-prime minister Justin Trudeau.
He believes Carney will be “very straightforward” in his dealings with Trump. “He knows his way around the world.”
Boehm points to Carney’s experience, including as former governor at the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, as something that will help him with Trump, along with the fact that phone calls between the pair so far “seem to have gone well.”
While the U.S. president is known to be unpredictable, Carney has no shortage of examples of how he’s handled meetings with other world leaders to serve as a guideline.
“A win would be that he doesn’t look like Zelenskyy or Keir Starmer, to be precise,” said CTV News political commentator Scott Reid.
Zelenskyy’s February meeting at the Oval Office made world headlines when it devolved into yelling and accusations.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried a very different tack of flattery at his meeting the same week, and produced a letter from King Charles III inviting Trump for a second state visit.
“Keir Starmer looked like a cat that was curled up at the president’s feet, purring every time he made a sound,” Reid said.
Reid believes the right approach for Carney is to try and have a “straightforward meeting that produces clear, tangible results.”
“Don’t turn this into some kind of confrontation, as satisfying as it might be to stand in the Oval Office, and you know, give the gears to the president of the United States. That’s not going to serve our national self interest,” Reid said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford weighed in with advice, telling reporters Monday he told Carney, “Don’t get bullied.”
“Stand firm. We’re their number one customer, and yes, they’re our number one customer, but just be strong, and we have your back,” said Ford.
