Carney’s Washington Visit: The Stakes and Expectations

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on May 6, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

News Analysis

The bar has not been set high as Prime Minister Mark Carney goes to Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 7.

Neither side has suggested there could be a major breakthrough from this meeting, aside from rumours circulating in Ottawa about potential adjustments to U.S. tariffs placed on Canada.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said the focus of the Carney-Trump meeting will be on “shared priorities in a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the U.S.,” a concept oft-repeated by Carney.

In other words, anything from current tariffs to the upcoming review of the United States-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement (USMCA) could be discussed in relation to the economy.

In early September, following a call with Trump, Carney said there was “nothing guaranteed” but there could be “small agreements” between Canada and the United States in a “few strategic sectors.”

On the security side, border and defence issues are likely to be on the agenda, including Canada’s potential participation in Trump’s new territorial air defence system, the “Golden Dome.”

Trump said on Oct. 6 that he expects Carney to bring up tariffs during their Oct. 7 meeting, adding that his administration’s tariffs policy has driven companies to leave Canada and other countries for the United States.

“I think he’s coming probably to talk about tariffs, because a lot of companies are leaving Canada to come into the U.S.,” Trump told reporters in Washington.

In a speech before a large crowd of top U.S. military officers last week, Trump repeated that Canada is interested in being part of the Golden Dome. He said he told Canada some weeks ago it could “get it for free” if it becomes the “51st” U.S. state, a comment he had not made publicly for some months.

Trump initially said the cost for Canada to join the program would be US$61 billion, and he later raised the price tag to US$71 billion.

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc told the House of Commons on Oct. 6 that the focus of the D.C. meeting will be on trade issues and building a North American economy beneficial for both countries.

A “series of other international issues” will also be discussed between Carney and Trump, he added. Given the current context, this could include the prospective peace agreement between Israel and Hamas—which Trump has spearheaded—and the war in Ukraine, for which a resolution remains elusive.

Second Washington Visit

The Oct. 7 meeting will be Carney’s second visit to the White House, five months after the first official meeting between the two leaders in the Oval Office. The two also met during G7 meetings in Canada in June.

The first meeting in early May came shortly after Carney won the April federal election, campaigning on a promise to stand up to Trump and negotiate a new economic and security partnership after declaring that the “old” relationship with the United States is “over.”

The portion of the meeting in front of world cameras had been cordial, with the two leaders singing each other’s praises. It become uncomfortable at one point when Trump made his case on why Canada should join his country. Carney had pushed back saying some things are “never” for sale.

It remains to be seen whether the two leaders will still speak at length in front of the cameras. In any case, major discussions rarely happen in public, and are settled in private meetings.

What could be consequential is if an agreement is reached to remove some pressures on Canadian industries impacted by Trump’s tariffs on metals, autos, or the softwood lumber duties.

There have already been layoffs in the steel sector and Algoma Steel announced last week it would receive $500 million in liquidity support from Ottawa and the Ontario government. The company said Trump’s Section 232 tariffs on steel have “effectively closed the U.S. market to Canadian steel, undermining Algoma’s cross-border business model.”

Trump has imposed sectoral tariffs as a mean to shore-up domestic manufacturing in sectors he considers vital for national security.

Trade Deals

Canada was initially hopeful there could be movement on those tariffs. After Carney met with Trump at the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Alberta in June, the PMO said the two agreed to work towards reaching a deal by July 21. The deadline passed, and Trump raised the tariff rate on Canada from 25 percent to 35 percent on Aug. 1.

Trump made several deals with major economies, such as the European Union and Japan, that kept the sectoral duties in place.

In light of those deals, and with Trump’s broad-based tariff of 35 percent on Canada exempting goods covered by USMCA, Carney has been repeating in past weeks that Canada currently has the best trade deal compared to other countries.

With this apparent impasse in moving trade talks forward between Ottawa and Washington, U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said in mid-September the Trump administration was hoping for a “bigger deal” than USMCA with Canada.

He said the White House was not just interested in renegotiating USMCA but wanted to make it into “something much bigger.”

“It’s obvious, at least at this point in time, that that’s not going to happen,” he said.

Meanwhile, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said last week he remains “optimistic” that a deal could be reached before the USMCA review.

“I have lost the illusion that we should predict a precise time when we might get to an agreement ... My view is an agreement is something that would improve the circumstances that we’re in today. I continue to be optimistic,” he told MPs on the International Trade Committee on Oct. 2.

LeBlanc, along with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Industry Minister Mélanie Joly, are accompanying Carney to Washington for the Oct. 7 meeting.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been less optimistic ahead of Carney’s visit, saying the prime minister has failed to “negotiate a win” with Trump after several months in office. “No more losing,” Poilievre wrote in an open letter to Carney dated Oct. 6. Throughout 2024, Poilievre’s Conservatives appeared poised to win the next election, leading in the polls with 20-point lead against the Liberals. However, their fortunes reversed amid the Trump presidency and his tariffs on Canada and talk of making Canada the 51st state of the United States.

Poilievre said even though Carney campaigned on an “elbows up” approach to negotiations with the United States, he has since promised to rescind the Digital Services Tax—a trade irritant for the United States—and has pulled back on counter-tariffs “while winning nothing in return for Canada.”

Ottawa has said these measures were meant to move stalled trade negotiations forward.

Canada’s counter-tariffs, which did not come with a USMCA exemption, had become a “huge irritant” for the White House, according to Ambassador Hoekstra.