OTTAWA: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government sees little chance of resuming talks with President Donald Trump before the midterm elections after trade negotiations collapsed, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Canadian leader, who said he will prepare a domestic aid package to help businesses hurt by US tariffs, is designing those measures to ride out the balance of Trump’s term if necessary, added the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.
The preparations from Carney signal the gravity of the breakdown in talks late Friday, which led Trump to impose new tariffs and Carney to announce retaliation, risking a spiraling trade fight between the two closely integrated economies.
While Carney’s government sees no sign of new talks in the near future – and only a dim chance before the midterms – some of the people cautioned the situation remains fluid and the United States has not ruled out a restart.
The sudden collapse of talks has left Carney bracing for the risk of a long winter.
He announced last Saturday that he’d roll out a domestic aid package, and told premiers over the weekend that the support would remain in place for the duration of the conflict and throughout the rest of Trump’s term if need be, one of the people said.
“We will support these businesses for as long as it takes, in other words, beyond the life of this US administration,” Carney told reporters.
“So, there’s various mechanisms that we’ve worked up. We’ll give all the details in a few days.”
Carney’s office didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
In an interview earlier in the day, his ambassador to Washington, Mark Wiseman, said Carney’s decision to enact his retaliation on Sept 8 is not a sign of an anticipated last-minute return to talks.
“I don’t think it should be viewed that way,” he said.
The United States has said the path for talks is unclear.
“It’s hard to say. We don’t have new talks planned with the Canadians.
“We’re moving forward with measures that respond to Canadian retaliation,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Fox News on Saturday.
Wiseman also signalled that the two countries remain in constant contact on a range of files, while sidestepping a question on whether they’ve discussed trade since Friday’s eruption.
“We talk to the Americans every day,” he said.
“We will continue to talk to all kinds of members of the US administration because we have to because we’re neighbours, we’re friends, we’re allies, and that’s the way we’ve always operated.”
The breakdown Friday night cast a cloud over US-Canadian ties and sowed confusion throughout the weekend.
Carney announced counter-tariffs but hasn’t specified them, leaving it unclear how far he will go to target swing states in November’s midterm vote. — Bloomberg
