‘You’re at war when you get attacked’: Mark Carney shows combative nature in face-off with Trump | Leyland Cecco, Heather Stewart, & Kalyeena Makortoff | The Guardian:
August 30, 2026 - "Mark Carney stood before a walnut-veneered lectern, his face drawn tight, as he announced that talks with Canada’s biggest trading partner had collapsed. 'Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so that they can own us,' he said. “And I promised: that will never, ever happen. We are keeping that promise'.... Near the end of the press conference last Saturday, a reporter made reference to the sombre, combative tone of the speech: 'Why does it feel like today Mark Carney is going to war?'
"The prime minister paused. 'We were attacked. You’re at war when you get attacked,' he said. 'We got attacked'....
"After trade negotiations with the US broke down, the two sides traded recriminations and made good on threats to impose new tariffs on each other. In his latest act of petty antagonism, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing the US federal government to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'. But Carney, in walking away from the proposed deal, did what few other leaders have done: dared Trump and the US to test his nation’s resolve....
"Joseph Steinberg, a professor of economics at the University of Toronto, said that while during the Brexit debate, Carney 'did not shy away from trying to tell kind of the hard economic truths', he had not spoken much about the economics of the current US trade war.... Carney’s decision to retaliate against the US has caused some economists, including Steinberg, to point out that Canada will take a far more painful blow than the US.... 'At the moment, Canadians are likely to be extraordinarily intolerant of making any kind of concessions to the US whatsoever, even if they are in our economic best interest,' he said.
"In January, Carney warned people at [the World Economic Forum in] Davos that 'compliance will not buy safety' in a world increasingly dominated by hegemonic powers. While it never mentioned Trump, his speech was seen as a thinly veiled critique of the US president.... One of Carney’s prescriptions – forging deep relations with like-minded 'middle powers' and restructuring to lessen reliance on former allies – has already taken shape in Canada, at a speed and degree to which the pollster David Coletto described as a 'wartime-footing government without a war'. 'It’s a government organised around an external threat that’s willing to suspend its own party’s orthodoxies, centralise power to move fast, and measure itself in outcomes rather than values,' he wrote.
"Carney abandoned many of the policies of his predecessor Justin Trudeau, including his carbon and electric vehicle mandates. He has also fast-tracked large projects, including an oil pipeline, and invested tens of billions more into defence....
"'The public has hardly blinked,' Coletto said in an interview. 'Mark Carney’s approval rating has just sustained itself through this entire period.... I’ve been surprised with his nuanced read of the country. He’s been adept at being not just politically effective but in holding his support together through a trying time. This suggests there’s little value in underestimating his political instincts.'
"Polling shows that Carney remains the leader Canadians trust most to steer the country through economic uncertainty. But the prime minister has also embraced a role that would once have seemed almost incongruous: asking a country vastly smaller and less powerful than its neighbour to stand its ground."
Canada turns to Europe amid escalating Trump trade war | Roundtable | TRT | September 8, 2026:
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