A deal or a deal, Mark Carney must manage a new relationship with the United States

A week after the last deadline for the trade war in some way that Donald Trump against Canada-and with Canadian officials now looking to re-negotiate the Canada and Mexican agreement-many things are still unclear.

But when Mark Carney spoke to journalists in British Columbia on Tuesday, he expressed clarity about at least one thing.

The Prime Minister said: “While we will continue to work with the United States on many beneficial opportunities for the two parties that we share in trade and investment, it is clear that we cannot depend, or completely depend on what our most valuable commercial relationship is for our prosperity,” the Prime Minister said.

Such comments follow from Carney’s insistence in March The “old relationship” in Canada with the United States has ended. “It is still great to hear the Prime Minister recently in this way for the largest commercial partner of this country and the nearest ally, with it Canada spent most of the last century steadily.

But it is also difficult to scatter.

For this reason, Carney continued on Tuesday, “We are increasingly focusing on building our strength at home and finding new opportunities for Canadian companies and workers abroad. “

It is clear that Carney will continue to be judged on how to move in the current conflict. But the deal or a deal – definitions or customs tariffs – the biggest question is how Canada should move in this new world.

How does the “deal” look with Trump?

In some respects, the moment of the crisis in Canada seemed to explode during the past two months.

Trump talks less about the inclusion of Canada. Some of his definitions turned to be less than what was originally threatened. Canada’s exports, in general, face a lower level of tariffs from many other countries.

But there is still a tariff. The effective rate of effective tariffs imposed by the United States is now It is estimated that it is 18.6 percent The highest since 1933. For Canada, the actual rate is estimated at 13.1 percent.

“You should think about Trump’s commercial policy as the second coming of the 1930 SMOOT-HWLEY tariff, which actually reflects the results of the liberation of 90 years,” Economist Paul Crowgman. books this week.

Unlike speculation that Trump was practicing a customs tariff as a bargaining tactic, it makes import taxes the “deals” feature that he signs with other countries. It appears that he is ready to accept the risks to the American economy and the additional costs that will be imposed on American families, to say something about the damage to the relations between the United States and other countries.

“The United States is mainly changing all its commercial relations,” Carney said. “In a series of agreements, America, in fact, receives benefit to reach its economy through a set of higher basic tariffs, unilateral liberalization of trade by its partners and new obligations to invest in the United States.”

Conservative leader Pierre Beyviri tried to blame Carney this week for his continuous presence of the American definitions and accused the Prime Minister of “bending back” to make concessions to the American president. He also said that the goal should be “unrestricted to the American market.”

These comments are at least a reminder of the amount of Carney at the stake in the current negotiations and in the upcoming negotiations – although it remains to see how expected the Canadian audience from Carney in this position.

Of course, even if the Carney government is able to reach an agreement with the Trump administration, the available evidence indicates that any deal is subject to change. Likewise, it seems naive to imagine that a kind of perennial soft before 2016 will return if Trump is no longer president or when Trump is no longer a president.

Is it time for a new third option?

Paying Canada’s relationship with the United States is one of the most powerful Canadian history lines. But the current moment may have something common with Where Canada found itself shortly in 1972.

Fifty -three years ago, Mitchell Sharp, then Minister of Foreign Affairs for Foreign Affairs, put his name to a 24 -page paper entitled, Canada Relations-United States: Options for the future. Against the background of the changing global order, concerns about Canadian economic and cultural independence A series of sudden moves by the American administrationSharp Sharmed that Canada has three options.

First, Canada can continue in the current situation, manage its relations with the United States on the basis of each case separately and deal with problems when they appear. Secondly, “Canada is deliberately moving towards closer integration with the United States”, perhaps through a free trade deal. Instead, “Canada can follow a long -term strategy to develop and enhance the Canadian economy and other aspects of its national life and in the process of reducing the current Canadian weakness.”

While Sharp was defending the third scenario, the Canadians went, under a different government, in the end with the second session. And what became known as “The third option“It has been pronounced, associated with some national economic interventions of Pierre Trudeau and the fateful pursuit of new commercial partners.

There is no evidence that Carney took any special inspiration from the third option. But Sharp’s description reads somewhat as a more striking way to say “strong Canada” – the slogan of the liberal campaign in the spring elections. (For this issue, it may be widely in line with some of what Poilievre said about the need to strengthen the Canadian economy.)

in Sharp rule laterHis paper helped mobilize public support for Canadian cultural institutions, but “did not … make any major change in the direction of our trade.” Although it “involves an internal restructuring of the Canadian economy to reduce our dependence on the United States”, which “has not been attempted to achieve and may have been extremely difficult to achieve it in view of the interfering judicial states of federal governments and regional governments.”

For Canada, the diversification of trade is qualified as one of those things that, if it is easy to do, then someone may do it now. Indeed, the efforts of Pierre Trudeau’s government to build bridges into new markets may be considered a “warning sign” that “what the government wants and what private investment often wants is at odds,” says Asa Maccher, head of research in relations between Canada-the United States at St. Francis University as Zafier.

Micharchr says that Carney starts from a better location, because Canada is now working with a number of comprehensive free trade agreements with partners outside the United States.

“When rubber reaches the road, will there be serious efforts to get Canadian companies, especially small and medium -sized companies, business links and actually benefit from these commercial agreements,” Maccher says.

“If you are the Carney government, if you will learn something of the third option, especially in diversifying trade, I say that you really have to make a serious effort to actually link Canadian companies to other companies and government agencies.”

It is possible that it is necessary to be realistic about what is possible. Even Sharp admitted that “the United States will definitely remain the most important market in Canada and the source of supply with a very large margin.” The third option, as he wrote, will be directed towards “reducing the weakness of Canada, especially with regard to the United States.”

But in 1972, this was just a choice. In 2025, you may feel like a necessity.