WorldPosted at: Sep 17 2026 7:30PM


Carney backs deeper Canada-EU alliance, warns against weaponisation of trade

Strasbourg, Sept 17 (UNI) Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday backed a deeper strategic partnership with the European Union, calling for greater cooperation in defence, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, energy, space and financial services, a day after US President Donald Trump threatened heavy tariffs against the bloc over its proposal to make Canada its first associate member.
Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Carney welcomed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's proposal for an "alliance for the future" with Canada, saying Ottawa and Brussels should work together to strengthen their strategic autonomy and resilience.
"Canada and Europe should secure our strategic autonomy through deep cooperation in the full range of strategic capabilities, including critical minerals, defence industrial capacity, AI and compute, energy security, space, and payments," Carney said.
He also proposed closer digital trade ties, greater movement of young people between Canada and Europe, and Canadian participation in the EU's Erasmus education programme and the next generation of its Horizon research programme.
Carney warned against the weaponisation of trade and economic integration, saying the tariff war had made countries reconsider their dependence on individual markets and supply chains.
"Today, our societies are being shaken by new storms: the upheaval caused by climate change," he said, adding that sovereignty and openness had become increasingly difficult to reconcile.
"Economic integration is now being weaponised, and tariffs are being used as a means of pressure. Financial mechanisms are being used for coercive purposes. Supply chains have become vulnerabilities to exploit," he said.
Emphasising the need for greater resilience, Carney said sovereignty in the current era went beyond a country's ability to meet its basic needs.
“This combination is a ferocious storm. A single tree will come down in it. A forest will not,” Carney said, using the metaphor of an interconnected forest to underline the importance of cooperation.
"Sovereignty goes beyond being able to feed, fuel, and defend ourselves. It now requires secure access to AI, semiconductors, critical minerals, payment systems, clean energy technologies, vaccines, and space-based communications," he said.
"We all have important gaps in these strategic capabilities, and we each must rely on individual nations or companies to fill them. This creates vulnerabilities, particularly when supposedly 'global' companies prove national in the breach," he added.
Carney said closing these gaps could not be achieved by countries acting alone but was "very achievable collectively".
He also sought to make clear that the proposed Canada-EU partnership was not intended to create a third power bloc or challenge the United States.
"I am not proposing a third bloc in order to become a great-power rival – only with better manners," Carney said.
"We do not seek power to dominate others. On the contrary, we are pursuing resilience so that no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity, or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law," he said.
Carney said Canada and Europe had complementary economic and strategic strengths, highlighting Canada's energy resources, critical minerals, space, artificial intelligence, quantum capabilities and financial sector, while pointing to Europe's market power, research base, advanced manufacturing and defence-industrial capacity.
"Where our strengths differ, they complement. Where they overlap, they create scale. We should build on each other's strengths – deliberately, systematically, and rapidly," he said.
The Canadian prime minister proposed cooperation on critical-mineral supply chains, LNG and hydrogen, sovereign computing capacity, AI safety standards, clean-energy technologies and financial services.
He also called for deeper people-to-people ties, including greater opportunities for young Canadians and Europeans to live, work and study on either side of the Atlantic.
"Deepening and widening our relationship will strengthen our sovereignty, improve affordability, opportunity, and security for our citizens, while safeguarding our ability to live our lives as we choose," he said.
Carney's push for closer Canada-Europe ties came a day after Trump warned the EU against moving ahead with the proposal, threatening "very serious tariffs" or restrictions on trade with Europe if he considered the move hostile.
Trump, speaking to reporters while travelling to an event in North Carolina, called the proposal "laughable".
"If they do that, if I think it's at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things," Trump said.
"If it's a good intention, that's fine. If it's a bad intention, we'll put very heavy tariffs on Europe," he added.
Carney, however, said the proposed partnership was not aimed at creating another power bloc or challenging the United States.
"The objective is not self-sufficiency. It is collective resilience," he said, arguing that Canada and Europe could combine their respective strengths to reduce vulnerabilities in strategic sectors.
The EU proposal for associate membership is unprecedented, and its precise terms remain unclear. Some EU diplomats have questioned whether the proposal had been sufficiently discussed with member states, while others have expressed uncertainty over what the status would entail.
French Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad, meanwhile, rejected the idea that Washington could determine Europe's geopolitical choices.
"It is not up to the United States to choose the political and geopolitical direction of the Europeans," Haddad said on Thursday.
Carney stressed that the proposed partnership should be based on shared democratic values rather than opposition to another power.
"An alliance not defined by what we oppose, but about what we are for: freedom, solidarity, prosperity, sustainability," he said.
He invoked the symbolism of oak trees that connect Canada and Europe, saying the relationship between the two sides had endured because values and ideas had been carried across the Atlantic.
"Let us now deepen these roots, widen this canopy, and grow a transatlantic forest under which our citizens can flourish as free people on free ground."UNI AAB
Tags: #Carney backs deeper Canada-EU alliance# warns against weaponisation of trade
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