OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump are in direct communication as part of Ottawa’s bid to persuade Washington to lift tariffs, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said on Thursday.
“We are in a trade war and it’s normal that at the same time that the trade war is taking place, there are also diplomatic negotiations, and that therefore, Prime Minister Carney and President Trump talk to each other,” she told reporters.
The Globe and Mail newspaper earlier quoted the U.S. envoy to Canada as saying the two leaders were secretly holding direct talks to work out a framework for a trade and security deal.
Trump this week doubled the tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum to 50% from 25%. The move has the potential to hurt Canada, which is the largest seller of the metals to the U.S.
Carney said on Wednesday that the countries were in intense negotiations over the tariffs and that Canada was “preparing reprisals if those negotiations do not succeed”.
Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, told the Globe the two sides were “laying out the perimeters” of a deal that could involve boosting U.S. content in autos, improving U.S. access to Canadian critical minerals and ensuring Canada played a much bigger role in the Arctic.
The talks also include increased defense spending, energy, border security, steel and aluminum as well as stopping the smuggling of fentanyl, the paper cited him as saying.
Carney’s office declined to comment.
In an email, an official at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa said “both the President and Prime Minister, or members of their teams, have publicly acknowledged that there are ongoing conversations”.
Unifor, the country’s largest private sector union, on Wednesday called on Carney to retaliate immediately.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler)
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