Carney calls Trump's tariff threats bluster ahead of US-Canada free trade talks

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Carney calls Trump's tariff threats bluster ahead of US-Canada free trade talks

2026-01-27 11:34 Last Updated At：11:40

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday some of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats should be viewed as prepositioning ahead of negotiations to renew the free trade pact between the two large trading partners.

Carney noted they are entering a review of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement this year and said he expects a "robust review.”

“The president is a strong negotiator, and some of these comments and positioning should be viewed in the broader context of that,” Carney said.

Trump threatened this past weekend to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing, though Carney has said Canada has no interest in negotiating a comprehensive trade deal with Beijing.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Carney spoke to Trump on Monday and Bessent told Fox News that Carney “was very aggressively walking back some of the unfortunate remarks he made at Davos.”

Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, said he spoke with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Sunday and made it clear that the Canadians are negotiating a “narrow trade arrangement” with China that mostly deals with just “a few sectors of our economy.”

He compared that to an agreement Trump made with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea last summer in which the U.S. cut some tariffs on China while Beijing moved to allow rare earth exports and lift a pause on purchasing U.S. soy.

LeBlanc also said upcoming talks were a review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and not a full-scale renegotiation of trade as happened during Trump's first term.

“It’s not six years ago We talked about that. This is a review,” LeBlanc said. “It was built into the agreement. It’s not a renegotiation."

LeBlanc said Canada is ready to move quickly.

In 2024, Canada mirrored the United States by putting a 100% tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100% import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25% on pork and seafood.

Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to Beijing, Carney cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.

“Last week’s new strategic partnership with China will make available tens of thousands affordable electric vehicles in Canada,” Carney said Monday.

Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1%, growing to about 70,000 over five years.

He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3% of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.

Trump’s tariff threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance.

Carney has emerged as a spokesman for a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the U.S. under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu." The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.

Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media last week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.

Bovino to leave Minneapolis as Trump reshuffles the leadership of his immigration crackdown

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino is expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday, according a person familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration reshuffles leadership of its immigration enforcement operation and scales back the federal presence after a second fatal shooting by federal officers.

President Donald Trump said he was placing his border czar, Tom Homan, in charge of the mission, with Homan reporting directly to the White House, after Bovino drew condemnation for claiming the man who was killed, Alex Pretti, had been planning to “massacre” law enforcement officers, a characterization that authorities had not substantiated.

Saturday's fatal shooting of Pretti, an ICU nurse, by Border Patrol agents ignited political backlash and raised fresh questions about how the operation was being run.

Bovino’s leadership of highly visible federal crackdowns, including operations that sparked mass demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and Minneapolis, has drawn fierce criticism from local officials, civil rights advocates and congressional Democrats.

A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Bovino is among the federal agents leaving Minneapolis. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the operation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

The departure accompanies a softer tone from Trump on the Minnesota crackdown, including the president's touting of productive conversations with the governor and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

The mayor said he asked Trump in a phone call to end the immigration enforcement surge, and Trump agreed the present situation cannot continue. Frey said he would keep pushing for others involved in Operation Metro Surge to go.

Homan will take charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota. Frey said he planned to meet Homan on Tuesday.

Trump and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz spoke in a phone call and later offered comments that were a marked change from the critical statements they have exchanged in the past. Their conversation happened on the same day a federal judge heard arguments in a lawsuit aimed at halting the federal immigration enforcement surge in the state.

“We, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” the president wrote in a social media post.

Walz, in a statement, said the call was “productive" and that impartial investigations into the shootings were needed. Trump said his administration was looking for “any and all” criminals the state has in their custody. Walz said the state Department of Corrections honors federal requests for people in its custody.

Meanwhile, attorneys for the administration, the state and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul appeared Monday before U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, who is considering whether to grant requests to temporarily halt the immigration operation.

She said the case was a priority, but in an order later Monday, she told the federal government’s attorneys to file an additional brief by 6 p.m. Wednesday. She told them to address, among other things, the assertion by the state and cities that the purpose of Operation Metro Surge is to punish them for their sanctuary laws and policies.

Lawyers for the state and the Twin Cities argued the situation on the street is so dire it requires the court to halt the federal government’s enforcement actions.

“If this is not stopped right here, right now, I don’t think anybody who is seriously looking at this problem can have much faith in how our republic is going to go in the future,” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said.

The judge questioned the government’s motivation behind the crackdown and expressed skepticism about a letter Attorney General Pam Bondi recently sent to Walz. The letter asked the state to give the federal government access to voter rolls, to turn over state Medicaid and food assistance records, and to repeal sanctuary policies.

“I mean, is there no limit to what the executive can do under the guise of enforcing immigration law?” Menendez asked. She noted that the federal requests are the subject of litigation.

Brantley Mayers, a Justice Department attorney, said the government's goal is to enforce federal law. Mayers said one lawful action should not be used to discredit another lawful action.

Menendez questioned where the line was between violating the Constitution and the executive's power to enforce the law. She also asked whether she was being asked to decide between state and federal policies.

“That begins to feel very much like I am deciding which policy approach is best,” she said.

At one point, while discussing the prospect of federal officers entering residences without a warrant, the judge expressed reluctance to decide issues not yet raised in a lawsuit before her.

The state of Minnesota and the cities sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot by an Immigration and Customs officer. Pretti's shooting added urgency to the case.

Late Monday, a federal appeals court declined to lift a temporary hold on a ruling Menendez issued in a separate case on Jan. 16. She ruled then that federal officers in Minnesota cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including people who follow and observe agents. A three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals said that ruling was unlikely to hold up on appeal.

News of Bovino's departure didn't stop dozens of protestors from gathering outside a hotel where they believed Bovino was staying. They blew whistles, banged pots and one person blasted a trombone. Police watched and kept them away from the hotel entrance.

Trump posted Monday on social media that Homan would report directly to him.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Homan would be “the main point of contact on the ground in Minneapolis” during continued operations by federal immigration officers.

In court Monday, an attorney for the administration said about 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were on ground, along with at least 1,000 Border Patrol officers.

The lawsuit asks the judge to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation.

The case has implications for other states that have been or could become targets of ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations. Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota.

In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, took under advisement a request from the Justice Department to lift an order he issued late Saturday blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Saturday’s shooting.

Attorneys for the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension told the judge they can’t trust the federal government to preserve the evidence, citing the lack of cooperation the state is getting from federal authorities after they said they were blocked from the scene.

But the federal government’s attorneys argued that the temporary restraining order should be dissolved because its investigators are already following proper preservation procedures, and they’d object to “micromanaging” from the court what evidence the state can examine while the federal investigation is ongoing.

Balsamo reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jack Brook in Minneapolis, Giovanna Dell’Orto in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this report.