The world leader saying no to President Trump

0:00It's Consider This where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, the man who said no to President Trump. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. That was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney back in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, speaking about a rupture of the world order. He didn't mention the United States by name, but in the months since, the economic relationship between Canada and the U.S. has hit a new low. We recognized from the start that America has changed.

0:42On Friday night, after intense trade negotiations with the U.S., Carney told his negotiators to walk away from the table. He explained why in a speech on Saturday morning. The new U.S. tariffs are designed to hurt us and divide us. And he acknowledged that the U.S. and Canada are in a trade war. You're at war when you get attacked. We got attacked. Consider this. Canada's prime minister did not fold to President Trump's demands. But what's the view from inside his country and who's going to pay the price?

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2:29It's Consider This from NPR. The United States was scheduled to impose new 50 % tariffs on Canada, hitting about$20 billion worth of goods. But then, about a week ago, President Trump took to Truth Social to exclaim, with capital letters and exclamation points, that Canada and the U.S. had reached a trade deal. That deal, it turned out, was not final. Three days later, Canada walked away from the negotiating table. And that led Trump to impose the new tariffs he'd originally promised on many Canadian products and to threaten even more tariffs on Canadian autos. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canada will not back down and promised to match U.S.

3:11tariffs, quote, dollar for dollar. Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so they can own us. And I promise that that will never, ever happen. We are keeping that promise. By rejecting what he called a bad deal, Carney accepted that Canada now faces a trade war. Joining us to discuss this is Andrew Coyne. He's a columnist for The Globe and Mail in Canada. Mr. Coyne, thanks for joining us. Good to be with you. Let's start with the Canadian government's decision to reject this deal. Did it surprise you? Not hugely. You always know with these kinds of negotiations that it's never final till it's final, and so it wasn't entirely surprising.

3:54I think people were perhaps more bewildered by why they had gotten so close to a deal given the terms that had emerged. It sure sounded like we'd given up a lot and not gotten a lot in return. So I think he would have been facing some trouble if they had closed the deal. Why did Canada end up walking away? It was touching on issues that went way beyond mere tariffs. I mean, the tariff part was problematic enough. And then on top of that, and I don't have the chapter and verse on this, but according to the prime minister, there were demands made that would limit our ability to sign trade treaties with other countries and to trade freely with other countries.

4:31And that really touches so closely on sovereignty. And particularly, it's our strategy in dealing with this president who is trying to weaponize our dependence in U.S. trade against us. Our strategy is to try to trade more with other countries. So to be told we couldn't do that was just clearly not going to be accepted. What has been the reaction in Canada to Prime Minister Carney's decision to reject a deal with the U.S.? Pretty universally supportive. Trade negotiations always can be hardball. People understand that. People understand also that trade negotiations are usually about trade. They're usually about countries that would like to trade more closely with each other, but they have some sensitive sectors that they want to protect.

5:10In this case, I think the perception and the reality in Canada is that the president wants to dominate us, wants to use trade as a weapon to corral us and to make us into something of a vassal state. And that belief is very firmly held across all parties in this country for the most part and all regions of the country. Even so, Canadian businesses are going to be hurt by this trade war, by retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. How are industries feeling about being sucked into a trade war? Very apprehensive, and rightly so. The auto industry in this country, which is a huge industry in the large province of Ontario, is looking at a very bleak future with or without this deal.

5:53But I think even industry was reacting to the particular terms of this deal, saying we can't possibly accept that. Carney gave a well-received speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year. And he talked about a rupture in the world order without mentioning the U.S. directly. Now he is saying, in his words, America has changed. Is his willingness to stand up to Trump defining Carney as a politician, you think? Yes, very much so. And this is a guy, you know, who worked at Goldman Sachs, you know, studied at Harvard. He's part of the business community. He's not your typical, you know, lefty anti-American if anybody's trying to portray him that way.

6:33This is a guy who would like to get deals done. He's been a dealmaker of one kind or another all his life. But I think he also understands the stakes for the country. And I think he understands that this is a moment when he has to lead and has to summon the will of the country to deal with this existential threat. I think a lot of Canadians would say at this point they think he's rising to the challenge. And he's also alluded to Canada's recent efforts to untangle its economy from the U.S. is saying that Canada is stronger now than when the United States started this trade war. Is that true? Where does he see this going and how does he get Canada to where he wants Canada to be?

7:11Yeah, this is forcing us to confront an issue that's always been sort of somewhere in Canadian psyche is how much dependence on the United States, how much exposure to the United States is too much. And I think for most of our history, people would say, look, there's a stable democratic republic to our south. Sometimes they don't pay enough attention to us or sometimes they can be a little overbearing, but basically we can deal with them. But there is a real determination now to say we cannot be this exposed ever again. Well, I've been speaking with Andrew Coyne, columnist with The Globe and Mail in Canada.

7:45Thanks for joining us. My pleasure. This episode was produced by Alejandra Marquez-Hansett and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Ted Meebane. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning, who edited this episode, along with Patrick Jaron-Watanana.

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