Canadian Prime Minister Carney says trade war is hurting Americans, noting consumer confidence

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump‘s trade war is hurting Americans, noting that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low.

Carney also said the kinship that exists between U.S. and Canada is under more strain than at any point in the two countries storied histories.

“His trade war is hurting American consumers and workers and it will hurt more. I see that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low,” Carney said while campaigning in Windsor, Ontario ahead of Canada’s April 28 election.

The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its U.S consumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9, the fourth straight monthly decline and its lowest reading since January of 2021. Trump has plunged the U.S. into a global trade war — all while on-again, off-again new levies continue to escalate uncertainty.

Trump put 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products — as well as all of America’s trading partners — on April 2.

“He wants to break us so America can own us,” Carney said. “And it will never ever happen because we just don’t look out for ourselves we look out for each other.”

Carney, former two-time central banker, made the comments while campaigning near the Ambassador Bridge, which is considered the busiest U.S.-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25% of all trade between the two countries. It plays an especially important role in auto manufacturing.

Carney said the bridge carries 140 billion Canadian dollars ($98 billion) in goods every year and CA$400 million ($281 million) per day.

“Now those numbers and the jobs and the paychecks that depend on that are in question,” Carney said. “The relationship between Canada and the United States has changed. We did not change it.”

Carney announced Wednesday a CA$2 billion ($1.4 billion) “strategic response fund” that will protect Canadian auto jobs affected by Trump’s tariffs.

The Liberal Party leader noted the bridge is especially important to Canada’s auto sector, the country’s second largest export. He said Canada’s auto sector employs 125,000 jobs directly and almost another 500,000 jobs in related industries, many of them union jobs.

“Canada will be there for auto workers,” Carney said.

Earlier this month, Trump granted a one-month exemption on his stiff new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada for U.S. automakers, as worries persist the newly launched trade war could crush domestic manufacturing.

In the auto sector, parts can go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.

Trump has declared a trade war on his northern neighbor and continues to call for Canada to become the 51st state, a position that has infuriated Canadians. The American president has threatened economic coercion in his annexation threats and suggested the border is a fictional line.

The new prime minister, sworn in March 14, still hasn’t had a phone call with Trump. It is unusual for a U.S. president and Canadian prime minister to go so long without talking after a new leader takes office.