Mark Carney’s high-stakes gambit: why Canada walked out on US trade talks and doubled down on retaliatory levies

One question of interest is why and how Canadian PM Carney made such a big move. He had domestic backing, of course, with his popularity set to soar given the fact that he has stood up to the bully in the room. He had also prepared the ground by discussing trade deals with India, China and others during the first part of this year. This came after his famous Davos 2026 Speech of middle powers needing to stand up or risk ending up “on the menu.” Despite being a middle power with obvious disadvantages, i.e., a smaller economy than the US, some 90,000 Canadian jobs at risk, etc., Carney chose to walk out knowing that pain to the Canadian economy means pain to the US economy, too—some of the US states going to mid-term polls have Canada as their top trading partner.