Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters he stood by his Davos speech denouncing superpowers without constraints, after a Trump official said he backtracked “aggressively” during a call with US President Donald Trump.
“To be absolutely clear, and I told the president, I meant what I said in Davos,” Carney said Tuesday, confirming that he and Trump had spoken on the phone.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Monday that Carney was “very aggressively” walking back some remarks made to Trump.
Carney made headlines around the world with his Davos speech, in which he indirectly criticized the US president for a “rupture” in the post-war world order.
Trump responded in his own Davos speech the next day by saying that “Canada lives because of the United States.”
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday, Carney denied that Bessent remembered the phone call.
He added that it was the US president who called him on Monday and that the two men had “a very good conversation on a wide range of topics”, including Ukraine, Venezuela, Arctic security and the recent trade deal between Canada and China.
Carney said the two also discussed the USMCA, a free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico that is up for a mandatory review later this year.
Carney said his Davos speech made clear that “Canada was the first country to understand the shift in U.S. trade policy initiated by (Trump), and we are responding to it.”
He added that the president understood Canada’s position.
In Monday’s Fox News interview, Bessent criticized Canada’s decision to negotiate a trade deal with China. He added that he was “not sure what the Prime Minister was thinking” during his speech in Davos.
“Canada depends on the United States,” Bessent said. “There is far more north-south trade than there could be east-west trade.”
“The Prime Minister should do what is best for the Canadian people rather than trying to promote his globalist agenda,” added the Treasury Secretary.
His remarks come after Trump threatened Canada with 100 per cent tariffs on its products if it allowed Chinese products to flow freely to the United States, thereby bypassing the taxes.
The deal between Ottawa and Beijing would reduce levies on Canadian canola oil from 85% to 15% by March, while Canada would tax a limited number of Chinese electric vehicles, or EVs, at the most favored nation rate, 6.1% – down from 100%.
Carney said Canada was not seeking a free trade deal with China and had “never” considered such a possibility.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Carney added that he believed Trump’s latest tariff threat was a negotiating tactic ahead of the USMCA negotiations.
“The president is a strong negotiator, and I think some of these comments and positions need to be seen in a broader context,” he said.
