President Donald Trump met with newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House on Tuesday.
The two leaders discussed a myriad of issues, including tariffs and the possibility of the nation becoming the 51st US state. The high-stakes talks came amid the prospect of a trade war between the two nations.
The two leaders discussed some of these matters during a joint press conference. At one point, a reporter asked, “Is there anything he can say to you in the course of your meetings with him today that would get you to lift tariffs on Canada?”
Trump’s reply was blunt: “No.”
“Why not?” the reporter asked.
“Just the way it is,” Trump replied.
The reporter then asked whether Trump would respect Canada’s decision if its residents don’t want to merge with the US. “Sure, I would,” the president answered. “But this is not necessarily a one-day deal. This is over a period of time. They have to make that decision.”
Carney spoke up, explaining that “Canadians’ view on this is not going to change,” and pointed out the close trade relationship the two countries have.
We are the largest client of the United States in the totality of all the goods. So we are the largest client in the United States. We have a tremendous auto sector between the two of us, and the changes made have been helpful. 50 percent of a car that comes from Canada is American. That's not like anywhere else in the world. And to your question about, is there one thing? No, this is a bigger discussion. There are much bigger forces involved, and this will take some time and some discussions. And that's why we're here, to have those discussions. And that is represented by who's sitting around the table.
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Trump appeared to take a shot at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after a contentious meeting earlier this year,, describing his disagreement with Carney as “very friendly.” “This is not going to be like we had another little blow up with somebody else. That was a much different... This is a very friendly conversation, but we want to make our own cars.”
The president continued, detailing his administration’s stance on auto manufacturing.
We don't really want cars from Canada, and we put tariffs on cars from Canada, and at a certain point, it won't make economic sense for Canada to build those cars. And we don't want steel from Canada because we're making our own steel, and we're having massive steel plants being built right now as we speak. We really don't want Canadian steel and we don't want Canadian aluminum and various other things because we want to be able to do it ourselves.
We have a tremendous deficit with Canada. In other words, they have a surplus with us, and there's no reason for us to be subsidizing Canada. Canada is a place that will have to be able to take care of itself economically.
Reporter asks if there's anything the Prime Minister can say today to lift the tariffs on Canada.
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 6, 2025
President Trump: "No. That's the way it is."
Canadian Prime Minister Carney: "This is a bigger discussion. There are much bigger forces involved. This will take some time." pic.twitter.com/FGfPGGYg0v
Trump said something similar in a post on Truth Social before his meeting with Carney. “Why is America subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection, and many other things? We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain,” he wrote.
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