u. s. trump

WASHINGTON — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet with President Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday at a time when one of the world’s most durable and amicable alliances has been fractured by Trump’s trade war and annexation threats.

Carney’s second visit to the White House comes ahead of a review next year of the free trade agreement, which is critical to Canada’s economy. More than 77% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S.

Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st state and his tariffs have Canadians feeling an undeniable sense of betrayal. Relations with Canada’s southern neighbor and longtime ally haven’t been worse.

“We’ve had ups and downs, but this is the lowest point in relations that I can recall,” said Frank McKenna, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States and current deputy chairman of TD Bank.

“Canadians aren’t being instructed what to do. They are simply voting with their feet,” he said. “I talk every day to ordinary citizens who are changing their vacation plans, and I talk to large business owners who are moving reward trips away or executive business trips. There is an outright rebellion.”

There is fear in Canada over what will happen to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Carney is looking to get some relief on some sector-specific tariffs, but expectations are low.

“Improving relations with the White House ahead of the USMCA review is certainly an objective of the trip, but opposition parties and part of the Canadian public will criticize Prime Minister Carney if he doesn’t achieve some progress on the tariff front at this stage,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.

Trump said Monday that he anticipated Carney wanted to use the meeting to discuss trade.

“I guess he’s going to ask about tariffs, because a lot of companies from Canada are moving into the United States,” Trump, a Republican, told reporters after signing an executive order related to Alaska. “He’s losing a lot of companies in Canada.”

Carney has said the USMCA, which is up for review in 2026, is an advantage for Canada at a time when it is clear that the U.S. is charging for access to its market. Carney has said the commitment of the U.S. to the core of USMCA means that more than 85% of Canada-U.S. trade continues to be free of tariffs. He said the U.S. average tariff rate on Canadian goods is 5.6% and remains the lowest among all its trading partners.

But Trump has some sector-specific tariffs on Canada, known as Section 232 tariffs, that are having an impact. There are 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, for example.

McKenna said he is hearing Canada might get some relief in steel and aluminum. “It could be 50% to 25% or agreeing on tariff-free quotas to allow the steel and aluminum to go through at last year’s levels,” he said.

The ties between the two countries are without parallel. About $2.5 billion (nearly $3.6 billion Canadian) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. There is close cooperation on defense, border security and law enforcement, and a vast overlap in culture, traditions and pastimes.

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.

“The bigger prize would be getting a mutual agreement to negotiate as quickly as possible the free trade relationship,” McKenna said. “If the United States were to threaten us with the six months’ notice of termination, I think it would represent a deep chill all across North America.”

Gillies writes for the Associated Press.

President Trump said Friday that he has reached a deal with China to keep the popular social video app TikTok running in the U.S.

Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social that he had a “very productive call” Friday morning with China’s President Xi Jinping. TikTok is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, a fact that prompted national security concerns over data protection from U.S. politicians.

He suggested that Xi had approved the planned takeover of TikTok in the U.S., but did not provide details on what the leader’s sign-off entailed.

“We made progress on many very important issues including Trade, Fentanyl, the need to bring the War between Russia and Ukraine to an end, and the approval of the TikTok Deal,” Trump wrote on Friday.

He added: “The call was a very good one, we will be speaking again by phone, appreciate the TikTok approval, and both look forward to meeting at APEC!”

Trump had signaled earlier this week that an agreement was coming. For months, TikTok’s future had been uncertain in the U.S., due to national security worries about the app’s ties to China. Trump in his social media post did not reveal much detail about the deal, but said earlier this week that TikTok’s operations would be owned by American investors.

“TikTok has tremendous value,” Trump said at a news conference on Thursday, adding the U.S. will be getting a “fee-plus” for making the deal. “I’d rather reap the benefits. The kind of money we are talking about is very substantial. It will be owned by all American investors.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that under terms of the deal, TikTok’s U.S. users would migrate to a new version of the app with technology licensed from ByteDance. U.S. user data would be managed in Texas by cloud computing company Oracle, the Journal reported, adding that details of the deal could change as it was still being discussed.

About 80% of a new company running TikTok’s U.S. operations would be owned by American investors, with the remaining amount owned by Chinese shareholders, according to the Journal.

Oracle’s Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison is a Trump ally and the world’s second richest person with an estimated net worth of more than $360 billion, according to Forbes. Ellison is also preparing a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the media company that owns HBO, TNT and CNN, after already completing a takeover of Paramount, one of Hollywood’s original studios.

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on the terms of the agreement.

Reports cited a Chinese news agency, which quoted Xi as saying the Chinese government “respects the wishes of companies and welcomes them to conduct commercial negotiations based on market rules and reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations and balance interests.”

The deal paves a path for TikTok to continue operating in the U.S. after President Joe Biden signed a law that would require ByteDance to divest ownership in the U.S. operations of the app or have TikTok banned in the nation due to security concerns. TikTok denies sharing user data with the Chinese government and says it has not been asked by Beijing to provide such sensitive information.

ByteDance on Friday thanked Xi and Trump “for their efforts to preserve TikTok in the United States.”

“ByteDance will work in accordance with applicable laws to ensure TikTok remains available to American users through TikTok U.S.,” the company said.

The law had initially gave ByteDance a deadline of Jan. 19, but Trump has extended that deadline several times, most recently to Dec. 16.

TikTok has more than 170 million users in the U.S. and is a home for video content creators and businesses. Fans of the app enjoy scrolling through feeds of entertaining short videos.

Some industry observers were skeptical over whether the deal will adequately address Congress’ security concerns.

“There’s just too many loose ends and too many things that could go awry,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

The TikTok agreement comes as the U.S. and China have been dealing with trade talks amid a tariff war.

On Thursday, Trump credited TikTok with helping him win the 2024 presidential election. He had campaigned to try to keep TikTok operational in an appeal to younger voters. He reversed his stance from his first term, in which the Trump administration made moves that could ban the app.

Daniel Keum, an associate professor of management at Columbia Business School, said he doesn’t think much will change after a deal is made. Many creators have already posted their content in other places such as Instagram and YouTube in light of TikTok’s uncertain future, Keum said.

“Even before, as there was so much uncertainty around the fate of TikTok, a lot of other platforms like YouTube and Facebook were co-opting the short reel format, so creators were distributing their content across other platforms,” he said.