In setting the stage for dramatic changes in how the Canadian economy functions, Prime Minister Mark Carney told citizens that President Trump’s U.S. tariffs and the fact that the long Canada-U.S. relationship has “come to an end,” will reduce GDP by 1.8 percent, or the equivalent of $1,300 for each Canadian.
“It’s happening fast,” Carney said of the changes for Canadian goods in the American marketplace. “It’s a rupture.”
[NOTE: Claiming the U.S. has long been “subsidizing” Canada, which he said was “taking advantage” of American largesse, President Trump wrote in May: “We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain. They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us!”]
Carney: We know that this decades-long process of our ever-closer economic relationship between Canada and the United States has ended. And as a consequence of that, many of our strengths have become our vulnerabilities, particularly in those industries that are most tightly… pic.twitter.com/7ksBOlNlcR
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 27, 2025
Carney supplied eye-popping statistics to back up the need to change Canada’s economic strategy “dramatically and rapidly,” citing steel, aluminum, and lumber as three Canadian exports for which the U.S. made up 90 percent of demand.
In all, 75 percent of Canadian exports went to the U.S. last year, Carney said, underscoring the need to open new markets as American buyers become disincentivized toward their northern neighbor.
One commenter, echoing others, read those statistics as a case of Canada making its own bed and being forced now to lie in it.
“It’s Canada’s own fault,” the commenter opined. “It should not have allowed itself to become so trade-dependent on any single partner in the first place, no matter how convenient. It’s like any sensible small shop owner might tell you, if you do a lot of business with those ‘friendly’ neighbours of yours from across the street, pretty soon they’re gonna start expecting ‘sweetheart’ deals, aren’t they?”
In other remarks at the United Nations General Assembly, where Carney is seeking a more global reach for his nation, the PM again referenced a “rupture,” asserting that where there’s a rupture there is “possibility.”
To stoke optimism and issue a call to rise to the occasion, Carney quoted the late Canadian poet/songwriter Leonard Cohen, who advised listeners to “ring the bells that still ring [and] forget your perfect offering.” Carney also noted Cohen’s famous truism that cracks are “how the light gets in.”
To combat the changed landscape and stalled friendship between Canada and the U.S., and promote the plan — and beg the patience — needed to work around this monumental shift, Carney said Canada must move economically from “reliance to resilience” and broaden its market reach so that no single nation’s antagonism can ever cause such a rupture again.