Donald Trump has threatened the EU with “serious tariffs” and a cut to trade after the bloc proposed making Canada its first ever associate member– an idea he derided as “laughable”.
The US president told reporters that if the EU moved forward with the plan, Washington could impose “very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe”. He added: “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe.”
Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, is due to address the European parliament on Thursday, a day after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, invited his country to become the EU’s first “associate member”.
Von der Leyen pitched closer cooperation on tech, defence and energy to Carney, telling the European parliament that, as democracies faced a “fracture in the international rules-based system”, Brussels and Ottawa needed to pull closer together.
She said: “This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength. In short, we want to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible.”
In response to Trump’s comments, France’s Europe minister Benjamin Haddad said on Thursday that Washington had no power to veto EU decisions.
“It is not up to the United States – or anyone else – to choose the political and geopolitical direction of the Europeans. Once again, we have a relationship with Canada, and we are fully entitled to seek to deepen it,” Haddad told Public Sénat TV channel.
A European Commission spokesperson said: “As our president made clear yesterday, the proposed strengthening of the relationship with Canada is not against anyone else, but for our common strength.”
Carney has called for a “unique alliance” with the EU as Canada seeks to reduce its heavy dependence on US trade. After meeting EU leaders in Strasbourg on Wednesday, he described the EU and Canada as “natural partners, united by shared values” and said that both sides were focused on “a deeper partnership that reinforces our mutual sovereignty to create more opportunities and prosperity for our peoples”.
An associate membership agreement would have to be approved by the EU’s 27 member states, who generally support closer ties with Canada, but were taken by surprise by the term.
Canada and the EU already have a trade deal and numerous bilateral agreements, but have been moving closer since Donald Trump returned to the White House and raised tariffs on both old allies, while repeatedly talking about Canada becoming the 51st US state and lambasting the EU.
In a sign that Canada was seeking to further diversify its defence ties away from the US, Carney’s office announced on Wednesday that the country had formally applied to join the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force military coalition.
The force is a rapid response military partnership comprised of 10 North Atlantic Nato member states including Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
On Wednesday, Carney and the British prime minister, Andy Burnham, held a bilateral meeting at the grounds of Everton football club. The leaders, who are both fans of the premiership club, then attended the team’s game against Wolves.
The two discussed deepening defence cooperation and the opportunities and challenges presented by artificial intelligence. Downing Street said both prime ministers emphasised the importance of building close ties with European partners, particularly on trade and defence.
The 27-member EU has never had an associate membership category, although it has close ties with Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, allowing deep economic integration with these countries, who follow many EU rules. However, it remains to be seen what associate membership means, including for Canada’s relationship with the EU single market.
Von der Leyen said on Wednesday that it was time to move from cooperation based on trade to a broader “alliance for the future” and “bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible.
“We will work on intelligent manufacturing. We will create a tech alliance. We will integrate defence industrial bases. We will make the Arctic a flagship joint project,” she said.
She listed energy, critical minerals, batteries, AI, cyber and economic security as other fields of cooperation. “This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength,” she said.
