Carney-Trump meeting will set the tone for Canada-U.S. relations: former ambassadors

Former Canadian ambassadors to the U.S. Derek Burney and Frank McKenna on what could be established from Carney’s upcoming meeting with Trump.

With Prime Minister Mark Carney set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in person for the first time next week, two former Canadian ambassadors to the U.S. say the tête-à-tête could set the tone for bilateral relations for the next four years.

“The tone at the top is always important, and personal chemistry, if you can get it, is just absolutely spectacular,” Frank McKenna told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in a joint interview with Derek Burney, airing Sunday.

The former diplomat pointed to the relationship between former U.S. president Ronald Reagan and former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney as an example of personal rapport contributing to strong bilateral relations.

“In this case, it’s a particularly challenging situation, obviously, because we have thousands of people out of work as we speak, as a result of the tariffs that have been imposed,” McKenna also said. “So there really is a lot of pressure to get some kind of a process started.”

“And I think it’s important to have some kind of a level-setting as to expectations,” he added. “What does the president really want? And what are the real facts?”

Canada-U.S. relations have been particularly strained since Trump launched a trade war by threatening to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports in February. Carney, who became prime minister amid that trade war, campaigned on the pitch that he was the best person to take on Trump, and stated several times that the decades-old Canada-U.S. relationship is over.

Trump, meanwhile, told reporters at the White House this week that he’d called to congratulate Carney on his election victory, calling the prime minister a “gentleman” and saying he “couldn’t have been nicer.”

Burney — who served as Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. from 1989 to 1993 — said he thinks Carney has so far struck a good balance with Trump.

“The first meeting with the president is important, and I like the tone that our prime minister has taken throughout the campaign on what has happened to the relationship with the United States,” he said. “And so, I’m quite confident that he will adopt a similar realistic tone in a meeting with someone who everybody’s trying to still figure out.”

Burney said he would exercise caution heading into any free-trade agreement renegotiations. Both Carney and Trump have said they’re ready to reopen talks on the agreement — called CUSMA — with the president often citing it as a point of contention for him with Canada.

“I would be very cautious about jumping into another negotiation with an administration that isn’t living up to the one it’s got,” Burney said. “I think ‘caution’ should be the watch word for the prime minister.”

“We need to clarify what it is that is upsetting the Americans, or Trump, about relations with Canada,” he added. “As Frank has said, he’s made all kinds of cockamamie suggestions about how unfairly we’re treating them on trade despite the fact that we have a formal agreement. But I do think we should try to clarify what his objectives are before we respond, and we should certainly not volunteer anything up front.”

McKenna — who said he “emphatically” agrees with Carney that the longstanding relationship between the two countries as it was known, is over — said it’ll be a challenge going forward for many countries, including Canada, to have a binding relationship and trust with the U.S. considering the president’s tendency to change his mind at a moment’s notice.

You can watch Burney and McKenna’s full panel discussion on CTV’s Question Period Sunday at 11 a.m. ET.