What Really Happened at the Trump-Carney Meeting?

Cartel media have a pretty low bar for defining success when it comes to Carney

Now that the dust has settled around Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ‘meeting’ with President Donald Trump let’s review. It was a meeting for which he received accolades from the cartel media, as though he was Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. But what that same cartel media didn’t do was take into account the history of what led to that meeting. And the reason they haven’t is that they know that if they did so they would have to reluctantly conclude the meeting didn’t go very well for Carney, or Canada. While we could say he came back with some commandments, none were very encouraging.

First, let’s remind everyone what Carney first told his ‘elbows up crowd’ to whip them into a frenzy to get their votes during the election campaign, in the wake of Trump’s tariff war and 51st state trolling.

“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening the relations of our economies, and tightened security and military cooperation is over. They (the US) want us to be the 51st state, they want to break us, so they can own us. They want our resources, they want our water and they want our land, they want our country.” (to which some elbows up idiot in the crowd yells — ‘over our dead body’)

With these words, this video demonstrates how he whips up the fear mixed with stirring up false national pride in the crowd.

Now, after watching that, one would think Carney was talking about Russia or China (oops forgot that he’s buds with China), or some other hostile country — not the United States of America with whom Canada has long had a friendly relationship.

But this was the rhetoric Carney used to instill fear in the hearts and minds of what can only be described as the most gullible Canadians. They are pretty much the same crowd that was all in for the useless restrictions and mandates imposed on Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s more of the same rhetoric from Carney:

“President Trump imposed unjustified tariffs on our nation in violation of our existing trade agreement. We will respond forcefully, nothing is off the table (oh what a tired old phrase) to defend our workers and our country. We will fight the US tariffs with retaliatory trade actions of our own that will have maximum impact in the US and minimum impact in Canada.”

He repeated this same nonsense more than once, in fact many times, except not a single member of the cartel media asked him what he meant when he said ‘the relationship with the US was over’, and they still haven’t. Particularly given the fact that Carney was the one who asked for for the meeting with Trump, not the other way around. That would lead most to think the relationship isn’t over at all, so what was all that the ‘relationship is over’ hogwash about? As a matter of fact Trump himself opined out loud he wasn’t sure why Carney wanted to meet with him, except he said, “to make a deal”.

Well, if that was the case Carney didn’t get that done. In fact, he couldn’t even get the President to lift the 25 percent tariffs he’d placed on an assortment of Canadian goods back in March. When asked about lifting those tariffs by a reporter — not Carney — Trump’s message was clear — that wasn’t not going to happen, and “that’s just the way it is,” to quote the President.

The reason for Trump’s recalcitrance on lifting those tariffs can be placed at the feet of both Carney and his predecessor Justin Trudeau for deciding to fight fire with fire by imposing tariffs on American goods in the wake of Trump’s tariffs and starting the whole ‘elbows up’ foolishness. First Trudeau imposed Canadian tariffs on over $30 billion worth of U.S. goods. And after Carney stepped into the PM’s office his strategy was to hit the US with another tranche of retaliatory tariffs. This, apparently was part of a ‘solemn promise’ he made to voters, which was, “When President Trump threatens us we will fight back with everything we have to get the best deal for Canada.

So on April 10th, when Trump announced a three month reprieve on US tariffs for all the countries on which he had imposed them, Canada along with China, wasn’t granted that reprieve. Why — precisely because Canada, along with China, had retaliated with reciprocal tariffs, while the other countries had not. For the countries that hadn’t retaliated, Trump indicated he would be starting trade talks. So much for Mr. Carney’s strategy “to get the best deal for Canada.” Yet, as usual the Canadian cartel media remained unsurprisingly mum on that blunder — right in the middle of the election campaign.

So this meeting between Trump and Carney was greatly anticipated. The question being, was Carney going to stand up to Trump and demand the tariffs be removed? Was he going to be able to negotiate a tit for tat arrangement — we’ll remove our tariffs if you remove yours type of deal? That was part of the strategy from this savvy business man turned politician, wasn’t it? And was he going to demand that Trump stop yammering about Canada becoming the 51st state?

Before we get further into how Carney handled himself during his meeting with Trump, let’s remember what he said about his primary opponent in the election Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in terms of how he might deal with the US President.

First of all I don’t recall Poilievre trying to divide and conquer anyone, those were more Carney’s watchwords during his ‘elbows up’ crusade. Nor do I recall Poilievre ever saying he ‘worshipped’ Donald Trump, but according to Carney, because he did, “He will kneel before him and not stand up to him,” like, we have to assume, Carney would.

And so what did Prime Minister Carney do in his meeting with Trump? Well, he began by praising the president for his magnificent leadership.“Thank you for your hospitality, and above all for your leadership. You’re a transformational president focused on the economy with a relentless focus on the American worker. Securing the borders. Ending the scourge of fentanyl and other opioids. And securing the world.” Wasn’t that kneeling to Trump, wasn’t that actually ‘kissing the ring’, because it sure didn’t look like ‘standing up to him,’ as he said he would. But of course all this election bravado, was forgotten by the cartel media, when they reported on his visit. He was just, “handling Trump very well.”

And what was Trump’s response after exchanging a few pleasantries and congratulating Carney on his election win? He went on a number of extended rants about how he still thinks Canada becoming the 51st state is a wonderful idea. This included expounding on how much better off Canadians would be as Americans — because their taxes would be much lower, they would have better military protection and better health care as well. Carney piped in assuring him that— as someone who deals in real estate — the President must realize that some property is never for sale and Canada was one of them. Well Bravo, Prime Minister Carney, for stating the obvious.

But it got worse when Carney sat there helplessly, as Trump went on a diatribe first trashing Justin Trudeau and then moved on to his former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, calling her a ‘ terrible person’. The looks on Carney’s face while Trump was talking about her, were priceless, given that he is the godfather to one of her children, and therefore not just a colleague, but a very close friend.

After that Trump gets into the trade issue. He starts by saying unequivocally that the US doesn’t want cars from Canada, because the US wants to make its own cars. And then he goes on, in his words, “We don’t want steel from Canada because we want to make it ourselves, and we don’t want aluminum from Canada and various other things.” He continues to say that Canada is going to have to learn to take care of itself, because he doesn’t think he can justify to the American people why the US is subsidizing Canada to the tune of billions of dollars through trade deficits. And then at that point be abruptly ends the news conference. Carney can say nothing in response to this and sat through the whole diatribe looking like a child being scolded.

These are some of the expressions on Carney's face while Trump is on his diatribe. Does that look like a guy 'fighting Trump'?

Yet somehow the cartel media seems to think he did fine, ‘given the circumstances’, Because, you know, he’s dealing with Trump and you can’t control Trump and he didn’t want to be embarrassed the way Ukrainian President Zelensky was when he was in that hot seat. Well it is safe to say he didn’t fair much better than Zelensky all things considered.

And now, here’s the insult to injury, so to speak. But to illuminate that, one must go back to the beginning of the meeting or news conference, just before Trump introduced Carney. While Carney was sitting there Trump told everyone that he would soon be announcing a very big deal, a great deal and that it was all good news. Well that big deal was announced the day after Carney’s meeting with Trump where he was told the US didn’t want Canadian cars, steel or aluminum, or anything else for the matter, pretty much. The announcement involved a new multi-billion trade agreement between the US and the United Kingdom, that involved the slashing or reducing of numerous US tariffs on United Kingdom products, including cars, and, among other things, a specific agreement that creates new trading union between the US and the UK for steel and aluminum. How is that for a slap in the face to Carney and Canada?

And as of today, it appears the Trump is now proceeding to slash tariffs on China. It appears the only country still out in the cold on the tariffs is Canada. But elbows up folks, elbows up.

Perhaps this caricature is a better depiction of how the meeting went between Trump and Carney that the cartel media can’t bring themselves to admit.