‘I wouldn’t see it as a snub’: Canada insists there’s nothing behind the lack of a Trump-Carney meeting

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will leave the G7 summit on Wednesday without a formal meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump as the free-trade agreement between their countries faces an uncertain future. Canadian leaders typically get a bilateral meeting with American presidents at summits of the world’s leading industrialized democracies, but Carney dismissed any notion of a snub. “I wouldn’t take a big message from that,” Carney said. “I had seven or eight discussions with President Trump over the course of last 36 hours. I’ll have more today, a wide range of subjects from the economy, relations, his birthday, artificial intelligence, Ukraine, obviously Iran.” Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January helped make him an international political star, when he declared the global rules-based order over and condemned coercion by great powers on smaller countries. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks and upstaged Trump at the gathering. Talks on the latest iteration of the North American free-trade pact have reached a crucial moment. The agreement, which has intertwined the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico since the early 1990s, is up for renewal on July 1. Trump said last week he may not renew the deal. Preserving the accord is critical for Canada, which sends about 75% of its exports to the U.S. Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister responsible for trade with the U.S., and Janice Charette, Canada’s chief negotiator, met with U.S. Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer at the summit. LeBlanc said they made progress. LeBlanc has previously said he believes the U.S. might want to have the trade agreement subject to annual reviews, and that the Trump administration might seek to cause uncertainty about its permanence. French President Emmanuel Macron, the summit host, is the only G7 leader to get a bilateral meeting thus far. Trump also met one on one with the leaders of non-G7