Carney eyes 'unique alliance' with EU as trade war with US intensifies

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada is pursuing a "unique alliance" with the European Union while avoiding full membership, as trade tensions with the United States intensify. He told reporters in Toronto on Sunday, "What we are looking - and volition statesman discussions for - [is] a unsocial confederation with the European Union," Carney noted he will travel this week to the United Kingdom and France, where he is scheduled to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg. His remarks follow a Wall Street Journal report that EU officials are receptive to a proposal from Carney for Canada to become an "associate member" of the bloc, according to sources on both sides. Carney directed his special envoy to Europe to "scope out the most ambitious possibilities short of full membership," the report said. Speaking at the Toronto International Film Festival, Carney denied that Canada is seeking formal membership, stating, "We stock the aforesaid values. We person the aforesaid priorities, and we person precise complementary strengths." He added, "We're stronger together. And this is astatine a clip erstwhile the world's much unsafe and divided, and friends request to instrumentality unneurotic astatine these times." In recent weeks, Canada and the United States have been locked in an escalating trade war after negotiations between the two countries collapsed in late August. The United States has imposed tariffs on key Canadian sectors including steel, aluminium and lumber, and has added an extra 50% levy on approximately C$28bn ($20bn; £15bn) of Canadian goods. In response, Ottawa has levied duties of up to 50% on C$28bn ($20bn; £15bn) of American products, ranging from steel to furniture to fabric T‑shirts. While in Europe, Carney will attend European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's State of the European Union address. He will also visit Liverpool to meet with UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Since taking office, Carney has promoted a strategy aimed at building a "more independent, more resilient economy" in the wake of increasingly hostile policy from the Trump administration. Trump has repeatedly suggested making Canada the "51st state" of the United States and recently directed the U.S. government to rename Lake Ontario as "Lake America". In January, Carney urged middle powers to unite during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, adding that the "old order is not coming back".