The Canadian Prime Minister has declared that the era of deep economic, security, and military ties between Canada and the United States is over. This statement comes in response to US President Donald Trump's announcement of steep 25% auto tariffs on vehicle imports to the US, set to begin next week.
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00:00We have some breaking news that's coming in.
00:08The US-Canada tariff war hits top gear.
00:10Canada Prime Minister says close ties with the United States are now over.
00:14He further says we'll restructure Canadian economy.
00:17The new Canada Prime Minister mulls talks with the United States President Donald Trump.
00:23So Mike Carney has said that the era of deep economic security and military ties between
00:28Canada and the United States are now over.
00:31And he said this yesterday after President Donald Trump announced steep auto tariffs.
00:36Trump's planned 25% levy on vehicle imports to the United States is to come into force
00:40next week and could be devastating for the Canadian auto industry that supports an estimated
00:45500,000 jobs.
00:51Shashank Mattu, my colleague, is joining me live on the broadcast with more details.
00:55Shashank, this comment that has come in by the Canadian Prime Minister, it doesn't really
00:59bode well for Canada and US ties.
01:01What can you tell us?
01:02Absolutely.
01:03I think this was the kind of statement that would have been unimaginable even a year ago.
01:08But now it seems all too commonplace in the Western world to be making statements like
01:12this.
01:13I think Donald Trump's tariff war as well as his position on the Ukraine conflict has
01:17led to a lot of European and Canada as allies to rethink their relationship with the United
01:23States.
01:25We recently talked about how the trust that existed between America and Canada as well
01:29as with Europe, for example, has been completely shattered by the actions of the Trump administration
01:33over the last two months.
01:34Many of them feel that the tariffs that have been levied by Donald Trump on the Canadian
01:41auto industry have been completely unprovoked and unjustified, and that's across the political
01:45aisle.
01:46It's become so unpopular that in fact, the Liberal Party, which is Mark Carney's party,
01:49was expected to be wiped out of the elections now that he might actually win because they've
01:53stood up to Donald Trump and they're pushing back against him.
01:55That's how unpopular Donald Trump is at the street level in Canada.
01:59And Mark Carney, of course, with his statement right now, saying that the era of deep security
02:02ties is over, is not only signaling this anxiety among Canadians about Donald Trump and their
02:08relationship with America, but he's also trying to score some political points because he
02:11knows that he's going into an election on April 28th and he wants to win that election
02:15and he wants to capitalize on what is his calling card, which is anti-Trumpism, which
02:19has become rampant in Canada.
02:21Right.
02:22Shashank, you know, he's also called the auto tariffs unjustified and he said that they
02:26were in breach of the existing trade deals between the countries.
02:29What countermeasures do you think you can see Canada taking at this point?
02:32Well, Chetan, one thing to understand is that when we say the Canadian auto industry and
02:37the American auto industry, it's actually one almost fused auto industry.
02:41It's literally the North American auto industry.
02:43In fact, when Donald Trump first proposed his tariffs on Canada, the automotive industry
02:48in America was up in arms.
02:49They were saying that look, we're already facing so much competition from China and
02:53you want to basically gut our industry by making sure that we have to migrate factories
02:57and labor and so on from Canada to American, to American soil that would take us years
03:02and billions of dollars and we will lose competitiveness.
03:04So that's where Canada is coming from by saying that these tariffs are unprovoked and unjustified.
03:10But yes, you're absolutely right that Canada has already spoken about inflicting economic
03:15pain on the United States.
03:17The European Union has also considered doing this.
03:19In fact, Donald Trump is aware of this threat and he in fact posted on Truth Social saying
03:23that look, if Canada and the European Union team up to post, to place economic pain on
03:27the United States, then they will also suffer greatly.
03:29So you're seeing these erstwhile allies trying to talk to each other as if they were very
03:33much trade enemies.
03:35Absolutely Shashank, thanks for bringing in that perspective on the story.
03:38Now the Canadian PM has said that the close ties with the US, Canada-US are now over.