Carney leaves G7 without formal meeting as Trump trade talks stall

Mark Carney left the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, without a formal bilateral meeting with Donald Trump, even as the future of the North American free-trade pact hung over the talks. The absence carried real weight: the deal is due for renewal on July 1, Trump said last week he may not renew it, and roughly 70% of Canadian exports still go to the United States.

Carney tried to drain the moment of drama. He said the lack of a scheduled one-on-one was not a snub and pointed to what he described as “seven or eight discussions” with Trump over the previous 36 hours. Carney said those exchanges covered the economy, artificial intelligence, Ukraine, the U.S.-Iran peace deal and even Trump’s birthday. “There’s no message in that,” Carney said of the missing formal meeting.

Still, the optics mattered because Canada has long expected summit-level access to the U.S. president, especially when trade is on the line. The Prime Minister’s Office said the two leaders had already met on the sidelines of the G7 in Kananaskis, Alberta, and agreed that trade talks needed to be sped up, with a goal of reaching a deal sometime over the next month. That makes the non-meeting in France less like a scheduling quirk than a test of how much leverage Ottawa still has as the deadline approaches.

A hot-mic moment added another layer to the encounter. CBC News reported that a microphone faintly picked up Carney and Trump discussing Canada’s recent agreement with China to allow up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market each year at a 6.1% tariff rate. The arrangement has frustrated Washington, which has imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, matching Canada’s own 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles introduced in 2024.

Trump’s calendar at the summit suggested where Washington’s attention was going. According to Canadian media reports, he had bilateral meetings scheduled with French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with separate meetings with leaders of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. For Carney, the message was sharper than any formal photo-op: trade ties with the United States remain indispensable, but so does the politics of access, timing and who gets a seat when the stakes are highest.