June 18 - Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday that he and members of his delegation held a succession of trade-focused discussions with U.S. officials at this week’s G7 summit in France, including engagements that involved President Donald Trump.
Speaking to reporters at an event in Vancouver, Carney characterized the talks as "a series of technical conversations" and emphasized their depth and specificity. He said the exchanges addressed a range of commercial subjects and stressed that the discussions were detailed in nature.
Carney said he had "a number of conversations with the president in parallel in the last few days at the G7 on a range of issues, including some of the commercial aspects." He reiterated that it was "no secret" President Trump has expressed unhappiness with the current trade arrangement between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
The Prime Minister noted that there are several practical areas where Canada and the United States can work together, explicitly citing trade in forestry products as one topic covered during the discussions.
Carney’s comments came as the three countries face a procedural deadline tied to their existing trade pact. The current agreement requires approval of a renewal by July 1, or alternatively for a country to signal its intention to exit. If a party signals an intention to leave, the process to withdraw would extend over 10 years - a timeline that would provide a window for potential alterations to the compact.
President Trump said on Wednesday that the United States would do better without a renewed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and that he would prefer not to have a new one, while also stating he remained open to negotiating one. That position was noted by Carney in describing the tenor of the G7 discussions.
Carney’s description of the meetings as technical and detailed indicates an emphasis on specific commercial matters rather than solely political rhetoric. The Vancouver remarks underlined both the narrow areas of negotiation - such as forestry goods - and the looming procedural choices related to the pact’s renewal or the initiation of a long exit timeline.
Details on any concrete outcomes from the summit conversations were not provided in Carney’s remarks.