Era of close ties with US 'is over': Canada PM Carney

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00:00The Canadian Prime Minister says his government will fight U.S. tariffs with retaliatory trade

00:05actions of its own, but will wait a week to officially respond.

00:09Mark Carney says he'll speak first with provincial premiers and business leaders to discuss a

00:13coordinated response after Donald Trump announced plans on Wednesday to impose levies of 25

00:20percent on imported cars.

00:22Carney says nothing is off the table.

00:25We won't back down.

00:28We will respond forcefully.

00:31Nothing is off the table to defend our workers and our country.

00:36The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our

00:41economies and tight security and military cooperation.

00:46For the very latest on this story, let's cross live now to Ottawa where our correspondent

00:50Christopher Gooley is standing by.

00:53Christopher, no immediate response then from Canada.

00:57But what options are open to Mark Carney?

01:00What actions might he end up taking next week?

01:03Well, the obvious one would be retaliatory tariffs.

01:07That's been discussed in the last few days.

01:09Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada's most populous province, also wants retaliatory

01:15tariffs.

01:16But Mark Carney's playing it really careful today.

01:18He's not showing his cards.

01:20He has to speak to Donald Trump and that will happen either tomorrow or the next day.

01:24And I think he's drawn from his business background, his banking background.

01:28He's going to do this behind closed doors.

01:30He's firm.

01:31But I think he sent a few signals out in the last 24 hours.

01:35For me most particularly was yesterday when he said, when he referred to the US as Canada's

01:41neighbour, no longer Canada's friend.

01:44And do you expect then to see a markedly different response then from Mark Carney than that we

01:50would have seen from his predecessor when all of this started, this trade war tariff

01:54and these threats coming from Donald Trump?

01:57I think that Mark Carney's reflecting the mood in Canada of this fatigue, this back

02:03and forth.

02:04It's almost daily.

02:05Mark Carney's been prime minister for nine days.

02:07Donald Trump's been president for just a little over two months.

02:10And the country, Canada, is exhausted by this back and forth cross-border tariff threat.

02:16I think that Mark Carney's shutting this down.

02:19He's going to do this behind closed doors.

02:21He's not going to negotiate in public.

02:23But I think he's also made it very clear that he's looking across the Atlantic.

02:26He went to France and the UK within 24 hours of winning the Liberal leadership and becoming

02:34the prime minister-designate.

02:36And I think that that shows that Canada is now looking elsewhere for all kinds of alliances,

02:41not the least of which involves trade.

02:44Yeah, because we don't know at this stage whether these particular tariffs are going

02:47to be stacked on top of the 25% levies that are being imposed separately on all goods

02:53coming from Canada.

02:54So how are businesses there even able to prepare for what might be ahead?

02:58How are producers reacting to all of this?

03:01I think the timeline is next week, April 2nd, could be April 3rd, when Trump announces his

03:08tariffs, his next round of tariffs.

03:11And I think that that's when Canada's probably going to respond in a very formal way.

03:16How are businesses responding?

03:18Well, there's panic.

03:20I mean, there are layoffs, the Canadian dollar's down, markets are reacting.

03:25Donald Trump talks about creating a homegrown U.S. auto manufacturing hub.

03:33Mark Carney said the same thing yesterday.

03:36He invested over a billion dollars to focus on Canadian-made automobile manufacturing.

03:42The thing is, for both countries, is that for decades now, that manufacturing has been

03:48cross-border.

03:49A little bit of part of a vehicle is made on one side of the border, crosses over to

03:53the other side of the border, and back and forth, and you get the full, fully assembled

03:57vehicle.

03:58So now there's going to be a reconstruction of that manufacturing capability, effectively

04:04on both sides of the border.

04:05But the bottom line is that tariffs, as we've been talking about for weeks now, are going

04:10to hurt both sides, Canada and the U.S.

04:14American workers are going to be out of jobs, just out of jobs as they are in Canada.

04:18Christopher, thanks so much for all of that.

04:20That is our correspondent, France 24's Christopher Gooley, joining us there from Ottawa.

04:25Well, it comes as the U.S.

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