USA

President Trump had one big question on his mind as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney headed to Washington last week.

“I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post, reiterating several of ways he believes Canada benefits unfairly from its trade relationship with United States.

The president also repeated his incorrect claim that the United States is “subsidizing” Canada to the tune of $200 billion, alluding to the country’s trade deficit with Canada, which is the value of what the United States imports minus its exports.

Statistics Canada says preliminary figures for April continue to point to a sharp drop in return trips from the United States by Canadian residents.

The agency says the number of Canadian-residents returning by automobile from the United States in April fell on a year-over-year basis for the fourth consecutive month as it dropped 35.2 per cent to 1.2 million.

At the end of a waitressing shift, Kristina Lampert used to separate her tips in two piles: Canadian cash and American.

But it’s been weeks since she has done that.

Freighters, the restaurant where she works, is one of the first places people can grab a bite after crossing the US-Canada border between Sarnia, Ontario, and Port Huron, Michigan.

The Blue Water Bridge, which connects the US and Canada, is in full view from the restaurant’s windows.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada may not be “totally removed” under a future trade agreement, the U.S. ambassador says, but the two countries are on the path toward a stronger relationship.

Pete Hoekstra, who serves as Trump’s envoy to Canada, says there are opportunities to secure new economic and security partnerships on the foundation set by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to the White House last week.

For the past century, the United States and Canada have been the best of friends, and war between them was unimaginable. Before that, however, it was a possibility that was always at the back of mind for military strategists on both sides of the borders—in no small part because the two had gone to war before.

Today, however, anxieties have flared. President Donald Trump has spoken openly about extending the borders of the United States all the way to the high Arctic, insisting that Greenland would be safer as a U.S. territory, while Canada could join the union as the 51st state. This will happen, Trump insists, through peaceful means.

Mark Carney, the new prime minister of Canada, called the idea of Canada becoming America’s 51st state “crazy.” This assumes President Donald Trump was serious, as opposed to Trump taking a whack at former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In his acceptance speech, Carney said, “The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country … if they succeed, they will destroy our way of life.”

Mark Carney has returned from Washington and is taking a bow from the highly supportive Canadian political media for a very cordial meeting with U.S. President Trump. He set out to replicate his mighty but unsuccessful effort as governor of the Bank of England to terrorize the British public over the prospect of the United Kingdom departing the European Union, which Britain had never voted to enter, and squeaked into the minority reelection of an otherwise failed Liberal government of Canada as the man who could stand up to Donald Trump. President Trump heaped compliments on his visitor and with some justification took credit for Carney’s election victory, said that he (Trump) was the best thing that ever happened to him (Carney) and slapped him jovially on the knee. Readers will recall that I said at every stage that the hysteria about Trump was a nothingburger and that no more would be heard about Carney’s theory that “Trump is trying to break us” and that “This country’s intimacy with the United States is over, a tragedy but the reality.” When asked about this last week President Trump said “He was running for public office,” a gracious explanation of the ludicrous canard that Trump is any kind of a threat to Canada.