Munk Dialogue with Andrew Coyne: How far is Carney willing to bend for Trump?

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[gentle music] So to make any kind of lasting concession that really touches on our sovereignty in return for such meager, if any, gains that even then can't be counted upon, um, is, is very, very dangerous stuff because once it's gone, it's very hard to get it back.

Welcome to our latest Monk Dialogue with journalist Andrew Coyne. Today, Friday, the 21st of August. Andrew, great to be in conversation with you as we barrel towards a supposed deadline in the latest round of trade talks with the United States. Uh, Andrew, some seeming leaks out today of various sorts. Again, everything to be confirmed. What are you hearing and what do you make of possibly some of the features of this deal, uh, still TBD as of, uh, recording this afternoon, the 21st of August?

Well, I certainly don't have any, any, uh, pipeline to the people in the room there. Um, the leaks have been few and far between, but obviously deliberate. Um, where they're coming from, for what purpose is, is always interesting in these things. Um, but, you know, there's been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between, what was it, Tuesday night or Wednesday morning when we were told there was some sort of, you know, quasi deal and it was all just a matter of nailing down the particulars. Well, we're now three days coming on later. Um, we still don't have a deal. We just have a bunch of leaks. Um, it, it's entirely possible, just as August 19th proved not to be the deadline, it's entirely possible that this one, the, the three days after October, uh, August 19th will prove not to be the deadline. That's the nature of these things often, uh, often is the case. I, I think what's really important for people to understand is this isn't the deal. This is, this is not renegotiating CUSMA or whatever you wanna call the free trade agreement. This is just about the 50% tariff that Trump was threatening to put on, uh, on about $20 billion of US of our goods come August 19th. Um, we've been scrambling to try to offer concessions, um, to A, avert that, and B, get the, the US administration to remove some or all of the tariffs they put on a year ago under a different section of the US trade law. Um, but even if we're successful, put those, that word in quotes, uh, in doing those things, we still have the whole CUSMA negotiations ahead of us, and not only do we have one set of negotiations to do with that, but because, as I understand it, because we, we did not come to an agreement as of July the 1st, we're into negotiations every year now on this. So, um, welcome to our, our future. This is, this, this is not some one-and-done thing where we make a, a tidy package of concessions. Um, the concessions sometimes aren't really concessions. Those are, those are the more normal types of