Trump insists on annexing Canada while pushing for a "comprehensive" trade agreement.

WashingtonUS President Donald Trump gave a warm welcome to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who sat in the Oval Office for the second time on Tuesday. As during his visit in May, the conversation focused largely on the deteriorating trade relations between the two countries due to the tariffs the US president has been imposing on his neighbor. Trump was optimistic about the possibility of reaching a new trade agreement, asserting that it would be "comprehensive." "I think they [the Canadians] will be very happy," the president told reporters. However, he also said that there would be tariffs with Canada.

Trump sought to normalize the battery of tariffs his neighbor has been imposing, using reasons he concocted. "The problem is they want a car company, and the US also wants a car company [...] So we have a natural business conflict," Trump explained, explaining how trade negotiations with Ottawa are becoming so bogged down. Trump imposed 35% tariffs on Canadian products as a leverage to end the alleged border crisis with Canada over the entry of migrants and fentanyl. Paradoxically, these tariffs continue to be applied even though this Tuesday Trump boasted to Carney that he has managed to "close the border."

Despite the 35% tariffs being in effect, the White House has been careful not to over-expose its own interests and has maintained a significant exemption that excludes all products already covered by the USMCA, the free trade agreement between the three major neighbors – the US, Canada, and Mexico. The president also told Carney that they should renegotiate the USMCA.

Aside from this package, Washington has also imposed tariffs on imported cars, steel, and softwood lumber. "Detroit [known for being one of the engines of US auto manufacturing] was emptied and moved to Canada and Mexico," Trump complained. However, while in practice important vehicles from Mexico are only taxed at 15%, Canadians are taxed at 25%. As a result of the tariff pressure, General Motors plans to lay off 2,000 workers from a truck factory in Oshawa, Ontario, and Stellantis has suspended the redesign of a plant in Brampton intended to produce a new Jeep model, leaving the factory idle.

Last May, Trump made a fuss about the negative effects of his tariffs on key markets in Ottawa and how one way to end this was by becoming part of the United States as the 51st state. Then Carney told the American president that Canada was not for sale and he replied: "Never say never.". While Carney applied the tactic of flattering the tycoon by listing the conflicts that the Republican claims to have resolved as justification for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump has not been one to joke again about the annexation of Canada.

–You are a transformative president. Since then [the last visit] you have obtained unprecedented commitments among NATO members to spend on defense, peace for India, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia... You have dismantled the force of terror of Iran, and now, most importantly...

–The merger between Canada.

–No, that's not what I was going to say.