'It's not easy' managing Donald Trump, Carney says

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Prime Minister Mark Carney says it isn’t easy dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump, but that the president is more direct in private than he is in public.

Carney, appearing relaxed, participated in a friendly question and answer session at a Sydney-based think-tank after delivering a speech where he emphasized the need for middle power countries to form stronger ties to counter U.S. power. He was asked several times about Trump, including his “game plan for managing” him.

“Wow,” the prime minister replied.

Carney at times throughout the event made a light-hearted show of trying to sidestep critical questions of Trump directly.

But when it comes to dealing with the volatile president, he told the audience it revolves around respect, being careful with the language one uses and ensuring that whatever is said in public can be backed up in private.

Then Carney said what everyone was already thinking.

“It’s not easy, to be clear. It’s not easy.”

Carney, who has twice visited the White House, including soon after his election victory last year, pitched his experience as a central banker during that campaign, which was largely defined by which leader could best navigate the Canada-U.S. relationship under Trump.

In light of this, the Opposition Conservatives have skewered Carney for failing to convince the president to remove or lower tariffs, with the joint review of the Canada-U.S-Mexico trade agreement due this year.

Carney’s election coincided with a wave of anti-Trump sentiment that swept the country, with Canadians outraged by U.S. tariffs and Trump’s habit of calling  Canada the “51st state,” a comment which Carney gently pushed back on during his first visit to the Oval Office last May.

The trick to navigating the president, Carney told the friendly crowd in Sydney, was to have respect, but not fawn.

Trump was the “president for a reason,” he said, pointing out that he had been twice elected.

“He would say, elected three times,” Carney added, referring to the president’s false claim that the 2020 election he lost to former president Joe Biden had been stolen.

At another point in the discussion, Carney made a reference to Trump’s love of crowd sizes when the president’s opposition to his speech at the World Economic Forum last month was brought up.

“I’m sure that’s not because you got a standing (ovation), and he didn’t,” think-tank executive director Michael Fullilove said.

“His was bigger,” Carney retorted. “His standing ovation was bigger. Let’s be clear about that,” he said to laughs in the room.

When it came to dealing with Trump, he said there was a difference between what people see in public and what happens in private.

“What I find is that he appreciates, particularly in private, being direct and discussing issues and being clear where your position is,” Carney said.

“It’s quite different in private,” he later added. “It’s much more — he is more interested in your viewpoint on various things in private, and that creates an ability to work through things.”

Carney also reflected on his relationship with another major world leader, China’s President Xi Jinping.

He recalled that when they first met at a summit last November, the president “chose to spend the first 10-plus minutes discussing how he wanted the personal interaction to be.”

“If I were to summarize,” Carney said of what Jinping outlined, “No surprises.”

“If you really care about something, be clear … he didn’t say it this way, but I interpret it, ‘don’t lecture me in public. Bring issues to me directly.'”

He was then asked about the difference between doing job of prime minister and a central bank governor — and which was more fund.

That led to him recounting to the crowd a central bank war story about one dinner he attended in Europe with a group of other central bankers just two weeks on the job in 2008 as a Wall Street investment bank was collapsing.

Hosted by Jean-Claude Trichet, former president of the European Central Bank, Carney recalled how the group had roughly an hour-and-a-half to decide what to do before the stock markets in Asia opened.

“Flooding the system with liquidity or shutting certain things down, etcetera. It’s pretty complex,” he recalls.

Carney grew animated as he told the crowd about the former European central bank chair spending the next ten minutes going through the wine list. As he did, the prime minister playfully gestured to his watch, as the crowd laughs. “Tick, tick, tick.”

“And he’s like, ‘Well, have this one, but you know, the pinot gris’ — and I’m like f-ck,” says Carney.

“An hour later, all I remember is — I’m like, how the wine is fantastic,” he said, more laughs.

“The central bankers have a lot more fun,” Carney concluded.

National Post

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