US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he would not meet with Canada “for a while,” as Prime Minister Mark Carney offered an olive branch to resume trade talks.
Trump announced he would be hiking tariffs on Canadian goods by an additional 10 percent and terminated all trade talks following what he called a “fake” anti-tariff ad campaign that featured the late ex-president Ronald Reagan.
When asked whether he would meet with Carney at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit he told reporters on Air Force One: “I don’t want to meet with him, no.”
“I’m not going to be meeting with him for a while… One of the most difficult countries to deal with has been Canada, as much as I love Canada itself and the people of Canada,” Trump added.
Trump did not confirm when the tariff hike is set to begin.
Speaking on the sidelines of a regional summit in Malaysia on Monday, Carney said he ready to resume talks with Trump following the row.
“We stand ready to sit down with the United States, myself with the president, my colleagues with their colleagues, when the US is ready to sit down,” Carney told reporters.
Carney said he had not had any contact with the US president in Kuala Lumpur.
But added that he had agreed to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, with both men due at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea on Wednesday.
Carney said talks with Xi would include their “commercial relationship, as well as the evolution of the global system”.
Trump’s global sectoral tariffs — particularly on steel, aluminium, and automobiles — have hit Canada hard, forcing job losses and squeezing businesses.
“We had made considerable progress on a supplement to the trading relationship that we had,” Carney added, referring to US trade talks, including “considerable progress in the areas of steel, aluminium, and energy-associated areas as well”.
The ad from the Canadian province of Ontario used quotes from a radio address on trade that Reagan delivered in 1987, in which he warned against the ramifications that he said high tariffs on imports could have on the US economy.
It cited the Republican icon as saying “high tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars.” The quote matches a transcript of his speech on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s website.
The Ronald Reagan foundation wrote on X on Thursday that the Ontario government had used “selective audio and video” and that it was reviewing its legal options.
Ontario said it would pull the offending anti-tariff ad on Monday so that negotiations could resume.
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