Mark Carney Usmca Negotiations Advance Paris Talks With Macron
Mark Carney usmca negotiations were part of an unusual Paris stopover three days before the G7 summit in Evian, France, where the Canadian prime minister met President Emmanuel Macron. A Canadian official said the visit gave last year’s G7 host a chance for pass-the-baton talks with this year’s host, while Carney said "Mr. Trump was at the centre of the discussion."
Carney told reporters in Paris that "the experienced Mr. Macron didn’t need his advice on dealing with Donald Trump", a line that made the meeting sound less like protocol and more like preparation for a summit already shaped by the United States president. Canada is dealing with Trump’s tariff pressure at home, including a new forced-labour bill in Parliament meant to shield against new U.S. tariffs, and U.S. delays in opening a bridge to Detroit that Canada bought.
Paris and Evian
The Paris meeting took place at the Palais de l’Elysee on Friday, before Carney and Macron were due to make remarks, and before the leaders moved on to Evian. The advance stop was unusual enough to stand out on its own: a bilateral meeting before the G7 host’s own summit, with Carney arriving as a former host and Macron preparing to take the stage in France.
Macron also set an agenda in Evian that echoed the G7’s origins, including global macroeconomic imbalances. The first summit in 1975 took place in Rambouillet, France, as an informal forum for leaders to talk about those same imbalances in the global financial system.
Trump at the centre
David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. during Mr. Trump’s first term, said "Trump management is the underlying goal for every G7 summit now." He added, "He’s not looking like he’s winning on all fronts. Wholesale price increases. Iran continuing. Challenging times." MacNaughton also said, "I doubt that it’s the right setting for Mr. Carney to seek a breakthrough on trade in a one-on-one with Mr. Trump."
That friction framed the summit’s wider agenda. G7 leaders in Evian were hoping to nudge Trump to join them in pressing Russia into peace talks with Ukraine, even as trade, Ukraine, regulating social media and artificial intelligence all divided Trump from the other leaders.
G7 talks in Evian
The meeting in Paris put Carney in the middle of a broader G7 effort to manage a president who had already blamed European allies in March for failing to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and suggested he might withdraw the United States from NATO. For Canada, the practical issue was immediate: tariff pressure, trade uncertainty under USMCA, and a summit built around the same Donald Trump problems Carney was already facing at home.
The next pressure point comes in Evian, where leaders will try to turn Macron’s agenda and Carney’s Paris conversations into a shared line on Russia, trade, and the disputes that keep pulling Trump to the centre of the G7.
