The Chinese deal would see Canada ease tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and China would in turn, lower levies on Canadian agricultural products.

Trump’s change in position might have something to do with Carney’s Davos speech, which appeared to have rattled the POTUS who responded: “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”

Elsewhere in his speech, Carney said: “For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order.”

He stated that Canada had ‘joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability’ which allowed it to ‘pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.’

Calling the international rules-based order ‘partially false that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient,’ and ‘that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically’, he said Canada no longer wants to be part of it.

He added: “Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”