Washington’s delegation to Canada seemed to have one message in mind: please keep taking us seriously.
Months of provocative statements about the Great White North joining America as the 51st state in the Union, however, led the delegation’s lone Republican member to admit to reporters that the US president had become an “adversary” of one of America’s two closest neighbors.
On Friday, five members of the US Senate were in Ottawa ahead of King Charles’s speech to the Canadian parliament. The delegation, typically a routine bipartisan gesture to an American neighbor whose relationship with Washington transcends political divides, was this year split between four Democrats and one lone Republican senator representing a border state — North Dakota. Other Republicans, seemingly fearful of tough questions about Trump’s vow to use “economic force” to coerce Canada into joining the US, stayed home.
Kevin Cramer, the GOP “co-leader”, told reporters on the trip that Prime Minister Mark Carney centered him in his conversation with the group, given the senator’s relationship with the Republican US president.
He told reporters that he sought to encourage Canadian officials to reach a trade deal with the United States. The Trump White House boasted that it would announce 100 trade deals in 100 days as the US president rolled out a slate of so-called “reciprocal” tariffs this spring; Canada has been a top target of his accusations of unfair practices.
“I don’t want to get in Donald Trump’s way. There’s no [trade] deal that happens without his involvement. But at the same time [I want to] be an encourager to Canada and their officials and try to be a partner in some way,” said Cramer after the meetings Friday, according to Punchbowl News.
He added, jokingly: “Hopefully I navigated it OK, but I’ll find out on Truth Social.”
Cramer did not take a beating on Truth Social, much to his relief — even though he did lay the blame for the fraying of ties squarely on Trump’s shoulders.
“We have an obligation to stop the offenses,” the Republican senator told reporters, speaking of the United States.
“For the moment, the United States has become an adversary to the Canadian people because of the offense that so many have felt,” he continued. “What I would stress with the president would be, let’s keep our eye on the common adversary and how much stronger we can be.”
The tone of Cramer’s outreach veered sharply towards outright groveling in an interview with Canadian newscast The West Block.
“I’m just here to say thank you, and then to encourage Canadians to take another look and give us another chance,” said Cramer.
Democrats on the trip had notably little to offer the conversation. Tim Kaine, according to Punchbowl, pitched Carney on his bill to block US sanctions on Canada — which even he tacitly acknowledged was going nowhere in the Senate.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen said that she hoped some of the “cracks” in the bonds between the US and Canada could be healed. But she added: “Ultimately it’s the prime minister and the president who will decide to reset the relationship.”
Their visit is not likely to shift the dynamic one way or the other. Carney, elected on a Liberal Party mandate to stand up to the US president, flew to Washington in early May after telling the BBC in an interview that Canada would negotiate with America “on our terms”. Rather than pursue a unilateral response to Trump’s tariffs, the Canadian prime minister reportedly invited Claudia Sheinbaum to the upcoming G7 summit in Kananaskis next month. The Mexican president’s attendance would allow Carney to pursue a discussion with Trump aimed at salvaging the USMCA trade agreement signed during Trump’s first term.
A defiant Carney told Trump that Canada was “not for sale” during their meeting at the White House in early May. The US president, avoiding another Zelensky-like blowup, declined to challenge him.
On Tuesday, the US president wrote on Truth Social that he presented Canada’s government with a $61bn price tag to be involved with the US’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defene system, adding that it would be free if Canada relented and became a state.
“They are considering the offer!” Trump said.
And on Tuesday, the visit of King Charles provided another opportunity to Canada to celebrate its own growing political distance from the United States.
In an address scripted by the Canadian government, Charles declared that Canada, under Carney’s government, would bond with “reliable trading partners and allies” — a clear warning shot for Washington. He’d add that Canada’s government was determined to protect the right to “self-determination” for the country.
“We must be clear-eyed: the world is a more dangerous and uncertain place than at any point since the Second World War,” said Charles on Tuesday. “Canada is facing challenges that are unprecedented in our lifetimes.”
