Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump pointed and smiled at one another as they sat down to dinner together in South Korea on Wednesday - their first in-person interaction since Trump abruptly ended trade talks last week.
They were among a small group world leaders invited to a dinner hosted by South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung. Signs on the table read that the dinner was in honour of Trump "and state leaders."
World leaders are gathering in Gyeongju, South Korea, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit this week.
As Carney arrived at the dinner, reporters asked him if he had a message for Trump and he responded, "I have a message for this president," pointing to Lee.
Trump has repeatedly said he doesn't plan to meet with Carney at the summit.
"For those that are asking, we didn't come to South Korea to see Canada!" he posted to Truth Social on Tuesday evening.
Carney and Trump have both been in Asia for several days — both attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, earlier in the week — but they had not seen each other or spoken since the latest trade rift began.
Trump declared a halt to trade talks with Canada last week, citing his frustration with an anti-tariff TV the Ontario government started running in U.S. markets.
The $75-million campaign features a clip of former president Ronald Reagan talking about tariffs. Trump has falsely claimed the message was manipulated.
Canadian and U.S. negotiators had been working to hammer out a deal on tariffs targeting steel, aluminum and energy products.
The Canadian side scrambled to undo the damage before Carney took off for Asia. The prime minister called Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Friday morning from the plane, and Ford announced he'd pull the ads after the weekend.
Trump was not appeased. On Saturday, he threatened to add an unspecified 10 per cent tariff on Canadian goods because the ad was still running during the World Series baseball games on the weekend.
He's given no indications of what that tariff might entail, telling reporters during his own swing through Asia that he hasn't decided when it will take effect.
He also said he held the Canadian government responsible for the ad because Carney knew about it and had seen it — something Ford has confirmed but the Prime Minister's Office refuses to comment on.
Carney told reporters in Malaysia on Monday that "very detailed, very specific, very constructive" negotiations had been going well and the two sides were close to a deal. He said "everything changed" from the perspective of the president when the ads started running.
While he's said Canada is ready to pick up the talks when the U.S. side is ready, Carney also said it highlights the importance of the trip he's on and the government's pledge to trade more with other countries.
"We're not resting because the return on building at home is far greater than the hit from trade turbulence with the United States. And the opportunities internationally are considerable," he said Monday.
After bilateral meetings with counterparts from Malaysia, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam at the ASEAN summit, the Canadian delegation flew to Singapore late Tuesday.
The short visit, squeezed between two major summits, was a chance for Carney to reach into his own Rolodex for a series of meetings with contacts from his time in the central banking and investment worlds.
The prime minister has been pitching Canada as both a steady and reliable trade partner that plans to double exports to countries other than the U.S., and as a place that's looking for half a trillion dollars' worth of investment in the coming years as the government aims to spur nation-building projects and ramp up energy production.
Malaysia's government-owned oil and gas giant Petronas owns a significant stake in LNG Canada, the liquefied natural gas conglomerate that recently made its first shipment from Kitimat, B.C., to Asia.
The second phase of that project is on the list of projects that have been referred to the Liberal government's new major projects office for fast-tracking.
Southeast Asia is hungry for more energy and many countries are working to build up their nuclear capacity to reduce their reliance on oil from the Middle East.
Ian McKay, Canada's special envoy to the Indo-Pacific and ambassador to Japan, said it's a priority that has come up in every meeting so far this week.
"The world is going to be craving more energy with the explosive use of AI, with data centres, and Canada's ability … to export significant volumes of clean LNG from the West Coast of Canada to the Indo Pacific region, to the ASEAN region, is top of mind for them," he said.
On Wednesday morning, Carney received a warm greeting at a breakfast meeting with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who said he was "delighted" to renew their friendship.
Carney praised Singapore's leadership on sustainable finance and rules-based trade and said the two countries can work together on "everything from clean technology through to logistics, food security, energy security and beyond."
Carney's schedule for Thursday includes more meetings with leaders from South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
The prime minister is also set to visit the shipyards of Hanwha Ocean, a Korean company that is one of two bidders hoping to build Canada's next submarine fleet. He has already visited the shipyard of the rival bidders on a previous trip to Germany.
The APEC summit gets underway on Friday. Carney is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping that day, the first formal meeting between Xi and a Canadian prime minister since 2017.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
