Mark Carney tells US to ‘start being serious’ amid escalating trade war

Mark Carney has rebuked Donald Trump’s administration and urged officials in Washington to “start being serious” amid escalating trade tensions between the US and Canada.

Days before Canada is due to retaliate against Trump’s sweeping tariffs with its own duties on US goods, the Canadian prime minister criticized US officials for insulting his country. “It is beneath their office,” he said.

“When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions” about trade, Carney said.

Trump signed an executive order last week directing the US federal government to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America – a move that has been rejected by Canadians.

The US president’s most senior trade negotiator has meanwhile downplayed the potentially disastrous effects of a US trade war with Canada, declaring the spat to be “more their emergency than ours”.

The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, argued that Canada was more vulnerable after the breakdown in talks set the stage for sweeping tariffs between the two neighbors, telling Politico: “There are no negotiations happening on trade right now.”

The comment comes just more than a week after US-Canada trade talks imploded. The US levied 50% tariffs on $20bn in Canadian goods.

Canada, the US’s second-largest trading partner, announced it would impose retaliatory tariffs on $20bn of American goods starting on 8 September. Now, US residents are poised to feel extreme pressure from Trump’s tariffs and Canada’s retaliatory measures, including on day-to-day items.

Greer appeared to blame the escalating trade war on Canadian officials, telling Politico: “It’s not clear Canada wants a deal.

“If Canada believes that prohibiting and banning American goods and services is appropriate, then obviously that’s something that the United States should consider as well.”

Unacceptable asks from Canada included lighter taxes on heavy-duty trucks, according to Greer, who said such requests torpedoed the trade talks.

Canadian officials, on the other hand, attributed the collapsed negotiations to a White House disagreement over who was directing trade talks. Mark Carney, the country’s prime minister, also said that American negotiators saw the French language in Canada as an “irritant”, but added: “In Quebec, these are rights.”

Trump, for his part, has argued in recent weeks that Canada “wants the benefits” of being a US state, without being one – a preoccupation of the US president – as he lashed out at the country’s leaders. “They have also charged our great farmers, for many years, massive amounts of tariffs,” claimed Trump. “No more!!!”

Greer suggested that negotiations broke down after a misunderstanding around what was, and wasn’t, on the table. “Was that political? I don’t know,” he told Politico. “Was it economic? … I’m not sure how much economic sense it makes because the choice is not between the current tariffs and … you know, duty-free trade. Like, that is that. Those weren’t the options.”