Canadian PM Carney on US tariffs: 'We’re going to hit back'

TORONTO: Mark Carney drew international attention as Canada’s prime minister by warning that middle powers must resist economic coercion by more powerful countries.

Now President Donald Trump is putting that warning to the test with sweeping new tariffs that could show how much economic pain Canada can absorb.

Tensions escalated late Friday when Canada walked away from negotiations after Carney concluded the United States was demanding too much in exchange for tariff relief.

The US imposed 50% duties Saturday on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, and Carney announced dollar-for-dollar retaliation beginning Sept. 8.

Carney is doing what many other American allies have so far avoided: risking economic pain rather than yielding to tariff pressure.

For Carney, the showdown is the clearest test yet of his argument that middle powers must stand up to economic pressure from great powers such as the United States and China, even when it comes at a cost.

Canada’s response could show how countries navigate a world in which long-standing alliances offer less protection and economic ties themselves become sources of leverage.

It could also shape how Carney is viewed at home and abroad, and how other US allies respond to the Republican president.

Carney said Washington introduced language in the final hours of negotiations that would have restricted Canada’s ability to make trade deals with other countries. He said that demand was “unacceptable” and “a question of sovereignty.”

British Columbia Premier David Eby said accepting such a condition would have reduced Canada “to the economic equivalent of the 51st state” — a status Trump has mused about often.

Carney’s message resonated in January when he addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as Europe braced for Trump’s threats over Greenland and new tariffs.

Carney said the international order was undergoing “a rupture, not a transition.” He argued that sovereignty would depend increasingly on a country’s ability to “withstand pressure” and warned that middle powers negotiating alone with great powers do so from weakness.

Trump responded a day later by stressing Canada’s dependence on the United States. “ Canada lives because of the United States,” he said. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”

The president has repeatedly talked about making Canada the 51st U.S. state and dismissed the allies' border as artificial. On Sunday, Trump returned to that theme, writing on Truth Social that “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!!” and accusing Canada of charging U.S. farmers “massive amounts” of tariffs for years. “No more!!!” he wrote.

“Our government understood, before many, that America would transform all its commercial relationships,” Carney said Saturday. He accused Washington of using “economic integration as a weapon” and said its “signature was written in pencil.”