Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is looking across the Atlantic Ocean for a better set of friends amid his nation’s falling out with the United States.
The prime minister is visiting France and the United Kingdom this week to affirm Canadian ties to Europe, snubbing the precedent of meeting first with the U.S. president — citing the lack of reliability from President Donald Trump.
It is “more important than ever for Canada to strengthen its ties with reliable allies like France,” Carney said Monday after meeting with President Emmanuel Macron at the Palais de l’Elysee in Paris, claiming the world is facing an era of “economic and geopolitical crisis.”
“I want to ensure that France, and the whole of Europe, works enthusiastically with Canada — the most European of non-European countries and, at the same time, resolutely North American — determined, like you, to maintain the most positive relations possible with the United States,” Carney told the French president.
Macron avoided directly referencing the U.S. but paid similar lip service to Canada — praising the nation’s loyalty and the possible stability closer cooperation could bring to an increasingly unstable Western order.
“In the current international context, we want to be able to develop our most strategic projects with our closest, more loyal partners,” Macron said of his meeting with Carney. “We are stronger together, better able to ensure the respect of our interests, the full exercise of our sovereignty.”
Macron is spearheading a push for more military independence from the U.S., urging nations on the continent to forgo American war machines and instead purchase their equivalents made in Europe.
“Those who buy Patriot should be offered the new-generation Franco-Italian SAMP/T,” Macron said in a Saturday interview. “Those who buy the F-35, should be offered the Rafale. That’s the way to increase the rate of production.”
Carney will soon travel to the United Kingdom for an audience at Buckingham Palace with King Charles III, who simultaneously serves as head of state for the U.K., Canada, and over a dozen other countries.
He will also meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, another world leader publicly struggling to navigate the tumultuous waters of diplomacy with the second Trump administration.
Starmer feuded with Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office last month while visiting with Trump, with Vance accusing the U.K. of suppressing its citizens’ freedom of speech.
“We do have, of course, a special relationship with our friends in the U.K.,” the vice president told Starmer. “But we also know there have been infringements on free speech.”
Starmer immediately rebuked the vice president, claiming, “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom. And it will last for a very, very long time.”
While Macron and Starmer are attempting a balancing act between staying on the U.S.’s good side and pushing back against foreign policy decisions that threaten their national interests, Carney is more immediately hostile to the president’s refusal to compromise.
“Donald Trump, as we know, has put unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living,” Carney said earlier this month after winning the Liberal Party’s support. “He’s attacking Canadian families, workers, and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed, and we won’t.”
“We didn’t ask for this fight,” he added. “But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. The Americans, they should make no mistake: In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”
MARK CARNEY TAKES OFFICE AS CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly warned Wednesday ahead of a G7 summit in Quebec that “Canada is the canary in the coal mine” concerning the U.S.’s treatment of its allies in the second Trump administration.
She reiterated her concerns to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday, pleading for recognition that “Canada is your best friend, best neighbor, and best ally.”