The new Canadian Prime Minister and former Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney has chosen Paris as his highly symbolic first visit to meet with former banker Emmanuel Macron, eager to seek a strategic partnership between Canada and France in the face of the foreign policy challenges posed by Donald Trump.
Three days after being crowned as the successor to Justin Trudeau, Carney has decided to travel to Europe without even having had a phone conversation with his Southern neighbor. His goal, he announced, is to "strengthen trade and military ties with our strongest and most reliable partners."
Carney joined the summit via video conference on Saturday convened by Keir Starmer and supported the European plan for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Canada was represented as a member of NATO at the recent meeting convened by Emmanuel Macron in Paris with around thirty heads of state, where Australia and Japan were also present.
Mark Carney's visit is indeed seen as a step towards the creation of an axis Paris-London-Ottawa as a counterpoint to Washington's distancing.
After his visit to the French capital, Carney will travel to London, where he will meet with premierKeir Starmer and with King Charles III, with whom he had a close relationship during his time as governor. The dual meeting in the British capital will also address "strengthening transatlantic security and trade relations" (United Kingdom is Canada's third-largest trading partner).
The 60-year-old Prime Minister (he turned 60 over the weekend) has not specified yet whether he plans to travel to United States and has indicated that he "hopes to have a conversation with Donald Trump at some point," against the backdrop of the tariff war that threatens to have a serious impact on Canada.
Carney was very firm in his inauguration and warned Trump that Canada "will never be part of the United States". "Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country," he warned before hundreds of Liberal Party supporters. "We are living in dark days, caused by a country we can no longer trust."
The future of NATO and European rearmament, in the face of a possible U.S. military withdrawal, were high on the agenda during the working breakfast between Mark Carney and Emmanuel Macron. The Elysee Palace confirmed in a statement that the two leaders would discuss "Russia's aggression against Ukraine, international crises, and the key projects of the Franco-Canadian strategic partnership."
Multibillion-dollar arms purchase contracts were also on the table. Shortly after being elected Prime Minister, Mark Carney asked his Defense Minister, Bill Blair, to explore alternatives to the purchase of 88 U.S. F-35 fighter jets, and one of the options could be the French Dassault Rafale. Canada is also considering the purchase of up to 12 submarines in Europe.
Carney will conclude his tour on Tuesday with a visit to the Canadian Arctic to "reaffirm the security and sovereignty" of his country against Trump's territorial ambitions in the region, including Greenland. Upon his return to Ottawa, it is expected that he will call for elections in the coming months, leveraging his momentum as the new leader of the Liberal Party.