Mark Carney arrived in Europe ahead of the G7 summit in France and spent Friday in Paris with Emmanuel Macron, setting up a trip that will test how far the prime minister of Canada is willing to shift his message on Donald Trump. Before he reaches the summit in Evian-les-Bains, Carney is expected to sound less confrontational toward the U.S. president than he did during the campaign that brought him to office in 2025.
The reason is simple: this week’s G7 meeting begins Monday, just days before the scheduled July 1 review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and Canada is exposed more than most of the other countries at the table. Roughly 70% of its exports go to the United States, making the trade talks and whatever Trump says next central to Carney’s first major international test as prime minister of Canada.
Carney did not sound like a man easing off the stakes. In Paris, he said Canada and France were determined to strengthen their strategic autonomy in a world dominated by hegemonic powers and hyperscalers, and Macron said the two countries share the same view of the world. That language fits the line Carney has been building since January, when his Davos speech became a symbol of middle-power resistance and he argued that the global rules-based order was over.
But the politics around him have changed. Carney won the job after promising to confront Trump, yet he now has to manage a relationship that has been battered by Trump’s trade war and by the U.S. president’s suggestion that Canada become the 51st state. Trump said this week that he may not renew the deal, while Carney has warned that the trade war is causing a chill in investment.
That is the friction at the center of the week ahead. The leader who rose by taking a hard line on Trump is now heading into a summit where restraint may serve Canada better than provocation, even as the country tries to secure a trading relationship that still underpins most of its exports. Carney has also set a goal of doubling non-U.S. exports in the next decade, a reminder that he is trying to reduce Canada’s dependence on Washington even as he negotiates with it.
The next test comes Monday in France, where the G7 opens before the July 1 USMCA review. If Trump uses the summit to harden his position, Carney will have to decide whether quiet diplomacy can hold the line, or whether the trade fight that helped lift him into office is about to define his premiership all over again.
