Carney likely to meet Trump at FIFA World Cup draw amid Canada trade tensions

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney The office confirmed that it will meet with President Donald Trump on Friday when the two leaders are at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to attend the final draw for next year’s FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

It could lead to their first debate over the relationship between Canada and the United States since Trump abruptly ended trade talks in October in response to an anti-tariff ad featuring former President Ronald Reagan that was paid for by Canada’s most populous province, Ontario.

“The risks are high for both Canada and the United States,” said Goldie Hyder, president and CEO of the Ottawa-based Business Council of Canada, whose members include CEOs of major Canadian companies.

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Former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney becomes Prime Minister of Canada after winning the Liberal leadership race in March 2025. (Artur Fedak/Noor Photo via Getty Images/Getty Images)

With 25% of Canada’s GDP it relates Trade of which 75% With the United States, “we’d better talk, we’d better find a way forward” on the tariff issue, Haider said.

He told Fox News Digital that Canada should not “wait for the president to call us to cut tariffs.”

“Why would he do that? All my information from Washington has been consistently that the president is fine with Canada’s situation right now. As far as he’s concerned, we got a pretty good deal,” Hyder said, noting that under the USMCA, about 85% of Canadian exports to the United States are duty-free.

However, Canada faces global challenges Tariffs on steel and aluminium and copper products by 50%; a 25% tariff on Canadian-made passenger vehicles based on the value of all non-U.S. content; Imposing a 10% tariff on non-USMCA energy resources such as crude oil and natural gas; and a 35% tariff on goods that are not members of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

In SeptemberCanada has dropped most of its counter-tariffs against the United States, except for those on non-USMCA steel, aluminum and automobiles.

Carney and Trump have not held any official meeting since the president ended cross-border trade negotiations on October 23.

President Donald Trump greets Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during a world leaders summit on ending the Gaza war on October 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. (Evan Vucci-Paul/Getty Images/Getty Images)

A month later, The Prime Minister was asked At a press conference following the conclusion of the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg, the president did not attend. When he last spoke with Trump, Carney replied: “Who cares? I mean, it’s details. I’ll talk to him again when it matters.”

He added: “I look forward to speaking with the president soon, but I do not have a pressing issue to talk to the president about at the moment.” He added: “When America wants to come back and have discussions on the trade side, we will have those discussions.”

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In their native Canada, Conservative parliamentarians pounced on the prime minister’s response, with their leader Pierre Poilievre reminding him during question period in the House of Commons that in the general election campaign won by Carney’s Liberals in April, he had promised a “tough” approach to Trump’s tariffs against Canada, and “after that, the question was: who cares?”

The Prime Minister admitted that he had made a “poor choice of words on a serious issue”.

Beren Beatty, who was foreign minister in former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Kim Campbell’s government in 1993 and who most recently served as president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, told Fox News Digital that Carney “who cares?” The comment was more of an expression of “frustration with the reporter” and exasperation with “the minute-by-minute questions about when did you last speak with Trump?” Instead of attacking the president.”

The FIFA World Cup Winner’s Trophy will be announced at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on February 4, 2024 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Eva Marie Ozcategui – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images / Getty Images)

“It wasn’t Mark Carney who stopped the talks,” Beatty said. “The president has broken off the talks, and you cannot negotiate with yourself.”

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However, as Haider explained, “it’s the little things that work for President Trump,” such as when the prime minister gave him a set of UN trademarks. Golf balls At a reception the president hosted for world leaders at the UN General Assembly meeting in September.

Trump invited Carney to visit the White House the following month, “which shows how important these interactions are and that it’s the personal relationships that matter above all else,” said Hyder, who served as chief of staff to Joe Clark, the former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the country’s 16th prime minister from 1979 to 1980.