Less than 48 hours after Prime Minister Mark Carney dismissed a question about when he had last spoken with U.S. President Donald Trump, a federal government source has confirmed to CTV News that he is considering a trip to Washington next week.
During his closing press conference at the G20 summit in South Africa on Sunday, when asked by a reporter when he last spoke with Trump, Carney said: “Who cares?”
“I mean, it’s a detail,” Carney said. “It’s a detail. I spoke to him. I’ll speak to him again when it matters.”
“I look forward to speaking to the president soon, but I don’t have a burning issue to speak with the president about right now,” he added. “When America wants to come back and have the discussions on the trade side, we will have those discussions.”
If Carney does make the trip to the U.S. capital next week, it will be his third visit since his election in April, amid a protracted trade war between the two countries. News of a possible trip was first reported by Bloomberg.
In February, Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods, kicking off a still-ongoing trade war. Despite assurances that Carney and Trump were working toward a midsummer deadline for a new economic and security deal, none has materialized.
Then, Trump abruptly terminated talks last month, blaming an ad by the government of Ontario, which featured former U.S. president Ronald Reagan criticizing the use of tariffs.
While the vast majority of Canadian goods are exempt from Trump’s initial slate of levies — which he said were related to border security — there are still significant sectoral tariffs affecting Canadian industries, including on steel, aluminum, copper, autos and lumber.
On the heels of Carney’s most recent visit to Washington last month, the prime minister and Canadian delegation said they were optimistic progress was being made toward a deal.
Government sources had also told CTV News that Canadian officials were hopeful there could be movement on a steel and aluminum deal by the APEC Summit in South Korea last month.
And, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Malaysia last month, Carney said talks “had been making progress” on affected sectors, such as steel and aluminum, until the Ontario anti-tariff ad created waves.
The U.S. ambassador to Canada, meanwhile, said following the ad that he doubts the two parties will come to any agreement before the new year.
The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) — the trilateral trade deal between the three countries — is up for renegotiation in 2026.
Following Carney’s comments during his press conference in Johannesburg, South Africa over the weekend, the Conservatives criticized the prime minister for “derid(ing) thousands of job losses as none of his concern.”
With files from CTV News’ Stephanie Ha
