Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested his countrymen were far from euphoric over the United Kingdom’s “historic” invitation for President Donald Trump to visit London.
The prime minister’s position on the matter stems from months of sparring with Trump over the president’s aspirations to annex Canada. During Carney's visit to Washington last week, Trump again talked about making Canada the 51st state, to which Carney said his country was “not for sale.” The president replied, "Never say never."
The tensions set the backdrop for Carney’s decision to weigh in on King Charles III’s unprecedented move to invite Trump to visit the U.K. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally handed Trump an invitation from the king, who is also Canada’s head of state, during a visit to the Oval Office in February.
Carney said during an interview with Sky News on Wednesday that his countrymen weren’t all that “impressed” with Charles’s warm invitation to Trump, particularly given the president’s repeated downplaying of Canada’s sovereignty.
“I think, to be frank, [Canadians] weren't impressed by that gesture ... given the circumstance,” he said. “It was at a time when we were being quite clear about the issues around sovereignty. ... I was not yet prime minister, but I was being clear on the campaign trail, and it cut across some of those messages.”
U.K. Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden deflected Carney’s criticism on Wednesday, saying he was “glad” about Trump’s state visit, which the president has suggested could happen in September.
“We’ve got free speech in the world. Prime Minister Carney is entitled to his view,” McFadden told Sky News. “He’s got to decide how Canada conducts its relationships with the United States, and by the same token, so do we. So I’m completely relaxed about the comments.”
“Every country has to decide how it conducts its own relations with other countries. For us, the United States relationship is really important,” McFadden continued as he touted a recent trade agreement Great Britain signed with the U.S. “We have conducted a very good deal with the United States just last week, which has saved thousands of jobs in the U.K. automotive industry.”
Trump said he was “honored” by Charles’s move to ask him for a state visit, calling the monarch “a wonderful leader and friend.”
"I think the last state visit was a tremendous success. His Majesty the King wants to make this even better than that, so this is truly historic,” Starmer told Trump in the Oval Office in February.
The British king is also set to attend Canada's state opening of parliament on May 27, marking another historic act.
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Carney, who rose to power in April, said Wednesday that the fact he invited the monarch to open parliament for the first time in nearly 50 years is “not coincidental.” The “historic honor that matches the weight of our times,” he said, was meant to send “a clear message of sovereignty.”
"All issues around Canadian sovereignty [that] have been accentuated by the president, what he said, they exist in normal times as well," Carney said. "So no, it is not coincidental, but it is also a reaffirming moment, will be a reaffirming."