A deeper alliance with Europe now sits at the heart of Canada’s plan to lean less heavily on the United States, with Prime Minister Mark Carney confirming that Ottawa will open what he called intense discussions with the European Union this fall on a joint economic and security partnership.
Carney pointed to the EU as the world’s second largest economy and cast the coming negotiations as a bid to build a much stronger and deeper relationship across both commerce and defence. Europe, in his framing, has become a central pillar of the diversification strategy.
The EU announcement landed as Carney suspended trade negotiations with Washington, having rejected new U.S. terms he branded uneconomic and unfair. Ottawa intends to answer new American tariffs dollar for dollar, with retaliation aimed at steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics, including products caught by U.S. Section 232 and 338 measures.
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The old cross-border model, Carney argued, is finished after decades of steadily increasing integration, because Washington now wields tariffs and market access as instruments of economic pressure. He ordered Canadian negotiators back to Ottawa, telling reporters the country cannot accept what Washington offered and will not give what it asked.
As the alternative, the prime minister put forward stronger domestic infrastructure, energy capacity, defence investment and access to non-U.S. markets, citing more than 20 recent trade and security agreements plus planned negotiations with ASEAN and India.
The European turn traces back to June 2025, when Carney stood with European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels to unveil a new strategic partnership. Those talks also delivered a Security and Defence Partnership, an opening move toward Canada’s role in the European Union’s Security Action for Europe program under the ReArm Europe Plan.
The fall discussions would widen that framework into a broader economic and security agreement.
