Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said this week that his government had planned for the possibility of a US invasion of Canada as trade tensions between the two countries continued to escalate.
“I think you have a responsibility in these roles to look at extreme tail risk,” Carney told The New York Times on Wednesday during a visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. “That’s just risk management. That’s not a base case, but it would be irresponsible not to.”
Carney, 61, is a former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. His comments came a week after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed that Canada become an associate member of the 27-country European Union. President Trump said the proposal could amount to a “hostile act.”
Earlier this month, Ottawa imposed retaliatory tariffs of between 15% and 50% on more than $20 billion in US goods, including steel, aluminum, wool, lumber, milk, T-shirts and air conditioners. Trump responded by blocking Canadian products from federal contracts, signing an executive order to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” and warning that US tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks and auto parts could rise beginning Jan. 1.
The United States had imposed 50% duties on an estimated $28 billion of Canadian imports on Aug. 22, targeting products such as beer, cheese and electronics. The move prompted Carney to tell reporters: “We were attacked. You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked. That’s fine. We’ve got the reserves. We’ve got the resilience. We’ve got the plan. We’ve got the focus. We will respond.”
During the tenure of Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, Trump repeatedly suggested that Canada could become the 51st US state and derided the then-prime minister by calling him “Governor.” The remarks contributed to worsening relations between the neighboring countries, which share the world’s longest undefended border.
