Trump says nothing Carney says will stop tariffs after PM insists Canada ‘will never be for sale’ – live

Trump says nothing Carney can say will make him lift Canada tariffs

Trump says “this is a very friendly conversation” with Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney but that the US wants to make its own cars.

“We don’t really want cars from Canada,” Trump says. “We don’t want steel from Canada because we’re making out own steel.”

Asked if there is anything Carney can say to him that would make him lift the tariffs on Canada, Trump replies: “No.”

Key events

Oman said it mediated a ceasefire deal between Yemen’s Houthis and the United States, according to Reuters, marking a major shift in the Iran-aligned group’s policy since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.

Donald Trump earlier alluded to an agreement having been made when announced that the US will stop its intense bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen “effective immediately” after almost two months, saying the rebels had told Washington they “don’t want to fight anymore” and would stop targeting US ships. “We will stop the bombings and they have capitulated,” Trump told reporters at his Oval Office meeting with Canadian PM Mark Carney, adding: “We will take their word.”

Here is the full report on the Trump-Carney meeting from my colleague Leyland Cecco:

Trump administration urges court to prevent release of pro-Palestinian students Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi

The Trump administration urged a US appeals court on Tuesday to allow immigration authorities to continue to detain students at Tufts University and Columbia University who were arrested after engaging in pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus, Reuters reports.

The US department of justice asked the New York-based 2nd US circuit court of appeals to pause lower-court orders requiring Tuft’s Rümeysa Öztürk to be transferred to Vermont for a bail hearing on Friday and allowing Columbia’s Mohsen Mahdawi to be released last week. Justice department attorney Drew Ensign said those orders by two judges in Vermont should never have been issued, as Congress has made clear that any challenges to the government’s decisions to deport someone must proceed in immigration court. He said:

The result is precisely what Congress took particular care to avoid: simultaneous proceedings in both immigration courts and district courts considering the same issues regarding the removal of aliens from the United States.

He urged the court to allow the administration to avoid moving Öztürk from the Louisiana detention facility she is being held in and to allow immigration authorities to swiftly take Mahdawi back into custody. But lawyers for Öztürk and Mahdawi countered that their lawsuits were not about the government’s ability to seek their deportation but instead were focused on claims they were unlawfully detained for making constitutionally protected statements critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Öztürk’s lawyers say she is being punished for co-authoring an opinion piece in Tufts’ student newspaper that criticized the school’s response to calls by students to divest from companies linked to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.

“Rümeysa Öztürk’s case is unprecedented and shocking,” said Esha Bhandari, her lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. “She has been held behind bars for six weeks while her health deteriorates for writing an op-ed.”

Members of the three-judge panel appeared to struggle with whether immigration law stripped the courts of jurisdiction over the students’ claims, with US circuit judge Susan Carney calling the issue “difficult to untangle”. But she spoke critically of how Öztürk was arrested in the first place, saying she was “seized in Somerville on the streets by an unmarked vehicle and seized by people who are not in uniform and who are masked and hooded”.

US circuit judge Barrington Parker questioned whether under the administration’s view of the law someone like Öztürk would be able to even challenge their detention if they believed they were being held due to a case of mistaken identity. He asked:

How would she be able to challenge that without having to wait months and months in removal proceedings?

Per Politico: “Trump also seemed to downplay the prospects for major trade deals with other countries during the meeting. He said his vision is for the US to demand that other countries pay a price ‘to shop in the United States’, as if it were ‘a super luxury store’. He said the US would offer ‘very fair’ prices, which countries could either accept or choose not to ‘shop’.”

Key takeaways from Trump-Carney meeting

In a meeting that got pretty tense towards the end, Donald Trump dug in his heels on his tariff policy, insisting there was nothing Canadian PM Mark Carney could say to make him change his mind and lift tariffs imposed on Canada. Trump insisted the US doesn’t want cars and steel from Canada “because we’re making our own”.

Carney was firm on his “Canada will never be for sale” message emphasizing Canada’s sovereignty, which propelled him to electoral victory last week, to which Trump quipped “never say never” – Carney then mouthed “never” to reporters. Trump repeated during the meeting his interest in making Canada the 51st US state, saying “it would be a wonderful marriage”, and later adding: “Time will tell.”

For the most part, the tone of the meeting was friendly. Trump said that he wants “friendship” with Canada, which he called “a very special place” and said he has “a lot of respect for Canadians”, while Carney called Trump “a transformational president” and said the two countries are stronger when they work together.

Trump said that the United State-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), inked during his first term in office and set to expire next year, may be renegotiated. However, he said he’s not exactly looking to extend the free trade agreement. Trump said he’d consider a renegotiation of the trade deal but questions “if it’s even necessary”, to which Carney followed up: “It is a basis for a broader negotiation. Some things about it are going to have to change.”

Away from relations with Canada, Trump said that Beijing’s economy is “suffering greatly” because of tariffs that he has brought in. China wants to negotiate a trade deal to end the tariffs, he said, adding that “we will be meeting with them at the right time”.

The US president also said that ahead of his Middle East trip he will have a “very, very big” announcement to make, “either Thursday or Friday or Monday” and that it will be “as big as it gets”. He says it will be “one of the most important announcements that have been made in many years about a certain subject”.

Also on the Middle East, Trump said the US will stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen “effectively immediately”. He told reporters: “They don’t want to fight, and we will honor that, and we will stop the bombings.”

Away from relations with Canada, Trump said the US will stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen after the Iran-aligned group agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East.

Announcing that the Houthis have said they no longer want to fight, Trump said: “They don’t want to fight anymore … we will honor that and we will stop the bombings … they have capitulated.”

“They said please don’t bomb us any more and we’re not going to attack your ships,” he said. He did not elaborate.

Trump says nothing Carney can say will make him lift Canada tariffs

Trump says “this is a very friendly conversation” with Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney but that the US wants to make its own cars.

“We don’t really want cars from Canada,” Trump says. “We don’t want steel from Canada because we’re making out own steel.”

Asked if there is anything Carney can say to him that would make him lift the tariffs on Canada, Trump replies: “No.”

Trump says USMCA, the US-Mexico-Canada agreement, is “a good deal for everybody”.

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney says the deal is a “basis for a broader negotiation” and that “some things about it are going to have to change”.

Trump, asked about China, says Beijing’s economy is “suffering greatly” because of tariffs that he has brought in.

He says that China wants to negotiate a trade deal to end the tariffs, and that “we will be meeting with them at the right time.”