Juno News - Trump administration WARNS Carney over China ties

00:00:00.000 Well, the United States is warning Prime Minister Carney that cozying up to China will jeopardize

00:00:10.880 Canada's free trade deal with the Americans. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg

00:00:15.820 News Canada's recent trade deal with China involving electric vehicles has not gone unnoticed

00:00:22.600 in Washington, D.C. He says that may end up costing Canada when the USMCA comes up for

00:00:29.000 negotiations later this year.

00:00:30.980 The Canadians have the second best deal in the whole wide world. If they continue this path, 1.00

00:00:37.680 right, which is a political path of a certain thing, I'm going to go fly to China, I'm going

00:00:43.120 to open up my markets to China, I'm going to take Chinese electric cars and do all sorts of this

00:00:48.300 stuff, then when USMCA gets re-negotiated...

00:00:53.060 This year.

00:00:53.980 This year, sort of like towards the end of the summer, in the middle of the summer, do you

00:00:58.680 think the President of the United States is going to say, you should keep having the second

00:01:02.340 best deal in the world? I mean, you guys are such great friends. I mean, they are playing

00:01:06.920 with a set of rules that they haven't really thought through.

00:01:11.080 I can hear you. 0.93

00:01:12.380 Lutnick went on to say Canadians are being silly if they think that China will open up 0.94

00:01:17.100 its market to them. Let's listen. 0.94

00:01:18.700 Canada has never expressed to the world that they have the best deal, the second best deal in the

00:01:24.980 world. The best deal in the world is Mexico. Because remember, they have USMCA, which means 0.96

00:01:29.740 85% of the Canadian economy comes into the United States for zero. And there he is complaining that

00:01:36.800 he's going to go to China and improve it. What's he going to do? China's delighted to sell to him.

00:01:42.940 But do you think China's going to open their economy to accept exports from Canada? This is

00:01:48.040 the silliest thing I've ever seen. They have the second best deal because Mexico's got a little 1.00

00:01:51.940 better deal. They have 25% on the extra 15%, whereas Canada's got 35% on the extra 15%.

00:01:58.140 But give me a break. They have the second best deal in the world. And all I got to do is listen

00:02:02.740 to this guy whine and complain.

00:02:05.280 Meantime, Lutnick's boss, President Donald Trump, says he's negotiating a deal, total and permanent

00:02:12.120 access to Greenland. The US military wants to build part of the Golden Dome missile defense

00:02:18.100 system there. This headline in the Globe and Mail, Trump's Greenland deal could include US

00:02:24.180 sovereignty over military bases and mineral rights. Trump announced a framework for a deal after

00:02:31.880 talking to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Davos, Switzerland. Trump later spoke to Fox

00:02:37.960 News about it. We will have all everything we want. We're getting everything we want at no cost.

00:02:42.940 So the Golden Dome will be on Greenland? A piece of it, yes. And it's a very important

00:02:49.020 part because it's everything comes over Greenland. If the bad guys start shooting, it comes over

00:02:54.800 Greenland. So we knock it down. It's pretty infallible. It's amazing. You know, Ronald Reagan

00:03:00.700 had the idea a long time ago, but we didn't have any technology at that point. The concept was great,

00:03:05.720 but there was no technology. Now we have unbelievable technology. I mean, virtually 100%.

00:03:12.120 So what are we talking about? An acquisition of Greenland? Are you going to pay for it?

00:03:16.180 We're talking about it's really being negotiated now, the details of it, but essentially it's

00:03:22.040 total access. There's no end. There's no time limit.

00:03:26.680 Now, according to Rutte, Mark Rutte, it'll be up to all the Arctic allies, including Canada,

00:03:32.360 Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway, to work together to boost security in the far

00:03:37.720 north. Now, Prime Minister Carney spoke with reporters about these stories in Quebec City

00:03:42.860 today.

00:03:43.200 Canada and the United States have built a remarkable partnership in the economy, in security,

00:03:49.560 and in rich cultural exchange. But Canada doesn't live because of the United States. Canada thrives

00:03:59.580 because we are Canadian.

00:04:02.840 Our guest today is David Creighton, who was public affairs officer with the Canadian Armed Forces

00:04:08.380 and deployed with NATO to Bosnia in 1996. Welcome, David.

00:04:12.960 I miss you back, Mark. Thank you for having me.

00:04:15.260 Before we get to Greenland, I have to ask you about Howard Lutnick's comments. He, of course,

00:04:20.540 is the Commerce Secretary for Trump, and he was pretty blunt. He said, look, if you want

00:04:26.640 to cozy up to China, things are going to be tough on you. Come time to negotiate the USMCA 0.94

00:04:32.380 slash KUSMA. This shouldn't surprise anybody, should it?

00:04:37.000 Absolutely not. And I was waiting with bated breath and anticipation last Friday to see how did

00:04:45.020 Donald Trump feel about Mark Carney in the New World Order with China signing a trade deal. I

00:04:51.660 thought, he's going to be furious. And of course, he comes with shrugs his shoulders. Good for Mark.

00:04:56.940 You know, if you get a chance to sign a trade deal with China, that's great. I thought, this is not

00:05:02.800 real. And after that, of course, you get the administration, senior administration people like

00:05:08.580 Howard Lutnick, coming forth and articulating the real policy of Donald Trump, which is, holy,

00:05:14.140 don't you dare. What have you done? You've endangered our trade relationship. We don't want

00:05:19.780 you signing trade deals with China. We don't want you getting into a new world order with China. 1.00

00:05:25.060 That's not the way we see the world. And Mark Carney knew that. Mark Carney spent a lifetime,

00:05:31.160 his whole career cozying up to China. He's China's man. He is an acolyte of China. I've said it a dozen 0.97

00:05:37.940 times before. But Lutnick is expressing the real Trump policy here, which is, you want to cozy up to

00:05:44.780 China. You want to ignore your chief trading partner, your chief defense partner, the country you're

00:05:52.860 attached to geographically. Well, you do that at your own risk and peril, Mark Carney. And I think his speech

00:06:00.780 yesterday, Donald Trump's speech at Davos to the World Economic Forum annual meeting was pretty harsh

00:06:08.340 because he, by name, identified Mark Carney as being ungrateful. He identified Canada as being not

00:06:18.140 only ungrateful, but taking a lot of freebies. Now, whether it's true or not, Donald Trump believes

00:06:23.920 that. And that is going to have a huge impact on the USMCA negotiations because Donald Trump's saying,

00:06:30.820 you want to stick close to China, I think you blew it with the United States. I cannot see how this is

00:06:37.660 going to help Mark Carney because we are still the chief trading partner with the United States. Whether

00:06:44.440 or not Mark Carney wants to imagine great things with China or not, the reality is for Canadians,

00:06:50.040 for people who are subject to tariffs in this country, for people who have to live their lives

00:06:56.320 next to the United States. That is who we should be concerned about most of all, not China. 0.88

00:07:02.280 Yeah. And Trump has already expressed ambivalence about the deal, suggesting he can either take it

00:07:07.120 or leave it. He says, Canada certainly needs it and wants it. And yet here we are cozying up to China

00:07:13.760 in such a way as to quite possibly jeopardize that agreement completely. I mean, Trump may decide to walk

00:07:19.240 away and say, no, not interested. We'll just have our tariffs. And that's going to be devastating for

00:07:24.300 our economy if they can't come up with some kind of deal here. You can't base your trade policy on a

00:07:31.360 soundbite. And that's exactly what that was last Friday. It was a soundbite. It was Donald Trump

00:07:36.560 looking like he was really enthused about this. Of course he wasn't. And Mark Carney knows what the

00:07:42.100 actual policy is. They have stated it very, very clearly in State Department documents, what they want

00:07:47.780 about Canada and other Western Hemisphere countries dealing with China. They do not want close trade

00:07:53.560 relationships.

00:07:54.160 Let's talk about Greenland because that plays into all of this as well. Because now Trump says that

00:08:02.320 there is a framework for a deal in place. It looks like it'll grant the United States some level of

00:08:07.840 sovereignty over part of the island. And that includes mineral rights. And guess what? Canada and the rest of

00:08:14.700 the Arctic nations, Norway, Finland, Sweden, on and on, have a role to play in the security of Greenland and the

00:08:24.520 North in general. What do you make of it?

00:08:26.460 I don't know what to make of this, Mark, because Denmark does not want to relinquish

00:08:32.440 autonomy or control over Greenland. They made that quite clear yesterday. At the same time,

00:08:37.960 we have NATO suggesting they're going to work out a deal to give Greenland to the United States. I

00:08:44.100 don't know how that's even possible in any kind of legal framework. NATO has no right, no legal right

00:08:51.000 to give away countries. And even if those even if those countries are somehow associated with NATO

00:08:57.240 and the Greenland's indirectly linked to NATO through Denmark, which is a member of NATO. But

00:09:02.100 if Denmark is saying no, we don't agree with this. Well, I think I guess Denmark, first of all, is going

00:09:06.300 to have to withdraw from NATO, because it doesn't agree with what NATO is doing. But I don't understand

00:09:11.340 how NATO thinks it can work out some kind of deal or some kind of framework, very, very weaselly word

00:09:17.120 there framework can mean just about anything for to make this happen. I honestly believe Donald Trump

00:09:22.520 was waiting for a refusal so he could take ulterior action and withdraw from NATO himself. I believe

00:09:30.420 Donald Trump really wants to get out of NATO. He gave loads of hints about that in his speech at Davos.

00:09:36.080 We get nothing out of NATO. We spend all of the money. These people are drifters. They just take our

00:09:42.280 money and we get nothing in return. Why are we in NATO? Well, yeah, we still were going to support you. But

00:09:47.060 for every reason Donald Trump listed the stay in NATO, he gave 10 reasons about why he wants to get

00:09:52.480 out. And I really believe that's his ultimate goal. I don't think he's necessarily going to use

00:09:57.080 Denmark as the peg to do that now or Greenland as the peg to do that. But I don't know how this is

00:10:03.720 going to work out to everybody's satisfaction. But obviously, Mark, we're not going to go to

00:10:08.040 NATO is not going to go to war with the United States over this. The United States is NATO.

00:10:14.240 Without the United States, there's no NATO. And that's something people have to remember.

00:10:19.660 The United States gets out of NATO. The organization's gone.

00:10:24.940 So Denmark may have to like it or lump it.

00:10:29.220 It doesn't have the muscle of the United States to throw its weight around.

00:10:34.600 That's generally what people have to do when Donald Trump is on the stage. Yeah.

00:10:40.280 You like it or lump it. But I don't know how this is going to end.

00:10:43.900 For Canada, though. Is there an opportunity here? I mean, we have companies in the defense

00:10:50.020 space. Maybe that might be an opportunity for them in terms of the building out of this massive

00:10:56.840 infrastructure for a golden dome project. I mean, we're neighbors to Greenland. I mean,

00:11:04.620 couldn't we parlay that into some kind of an economic union, not union, but agreement with

00:11:14.460 both the United States and Greenland to play a, you know, a critical role in the rollout of the

00:11:19.920 golden dome?

00:11:21.360 Well, you know, the golden dome is an unproven concept. It's not by any means something that's

00:11:26.800 going to work. The efficacy is highly in doubt. So he's throwing the golden dome out there as,

00:11:32.720 like, it's a proven fact and it's not. But here's what I think might happen, Mark. And I think this

00:11:38.760 is entirely feasible, given how bizarre the world is going right now. I think Mark Carney might act

00:11:44.560 as a so-called honest broker, if that's a word he even understands or ever uses. He might act as

00:11:50.880 sort of the neutral intermediary between Denmark and the United States. And I think with a view

00:11:59.060 to caving to the United States, because Donald Trump is adamant he wants Greenland. He's very

00:12:05.980 clear about that. He's not saying, you know, we might just like to keep our bases there. He wants

00:12:10.340 Greenland. And I think Mark Carney might enter into this procedure looking like he's going to solve

00:12:16.300 the problem to everybody's satisfaction, knowing full well, though, that he's just there to cave

00:12:22.340 to Trump's demands, because there's really no other alternative for him. And I think that's where

00:12:27.640 Mark Carney is going to go with this in an attempt to repair some of the damage he did last week in

00:12:33.880 China. Because Carney is not stupid. I don't like his politics. I don't think he has an honest bone 0.99

00:12:40.000 in his body. I don't think he fights for Canada. I think he fights for Brookfield and Mark Carney,

00:12:44.280 but he's a very intelligent man. And Mark Carney knows when you screw things up one week, you better

00:12:50.400 do something the following week to make up for it. And that's where I think he's going to,

00:12:54.400 he's going to insert himself into this because it's obvious Canada is the closest country to

00:13:00.060 Greenland. It's literally off Newfoundland. So Canada has arguably a role to play here,

00:13:07.880 regardless of how Mark Carney feels about it. But I think he's going to use that opportunity

00:13:13.700 for Carney's own benefit, as well as Donald Trump's own benefit. Because in the end,

00:13:19.180 these two really are old friends. They go back decades. They've had business dealings for a long,

00:13:24.520 long time. Donald Trump really does like Mark Carney to some degree. And Mark Carney does like

00:13:30.680 Donald Trump to some degree. That's hard for conservatives to understand. But that's the

00:13:35.820 reality. And I think Mark Carney is going to exploit that relationship again this week.

00:13:40.380 or next week. Well, closing up with China isn't going to help. And it seems, at least according 0.72

00:13:48.340 to Mellon Jolie, who got accosted. Well, he got certainly good for Ezra Levant for doing what he's

00:13:55.280 doing, approaching her and asking her questions about this. She had nothing to say except, well,

00:14:01.260 our view is different in terms, you know, so one day, you know, the prime minister describes China

00:14:07.120 as our number one national security threat. Now, all of a sudden, we're cozying up to them and

00:14:13.760 we're bringing in vehicles that potentially could serve, if you believe Doug Ford, as surveillance

00:14:21.380 vehicles for China. And so, and now we have Howard Lutnick, the Americans, saying, you know, this is,

00:14:27.640 you think you're going to go down that road and this is going to work out for you? Bad move. So,

00:14:33.000 how do you reverse from that, even if you wanted to? How do you do a U-turn, you know,

00:14:39.920 back from what you've just done with China? Well, fortunately, Mark, we're living in a world 1.00

00:14:45.660 described by George Orwell in 1984, where one week the enemy is clearly articulated, the next week,

00:14:53.940 that's no longer the enemy. And that's exactly the kind of world we're living in, because China has 0.99

00:14:59.240 gone from the major security threat to Canada, which, of course, Mark Carney was saying through

00:15:04.820 par slips. He doesn't believe that. He has been a fan of China his whole career. Now, of course,

00:15:10.240 China's our best friend. Well, maybe next week, it's not going to be our best friend anymore, 1.00

00:15:14.480 because Donald Trump is going to intervene. And Carney knows he needs that free trade deal.

00:15:20.100 And that's a lot more important, ultimately, inevitably, and in the long term. That's more

00:15:25.900 important to Mark Carney than this new world order rhetoric coming out of China. So I really do

00:15:31.680 believe that we are living in a very strange world where it is entirely possible for one week China to 0.96

00:15:37.880 be that major security threat. The next week, not really. And the week after that, maybe it is again.

00:15:44.180 Very strange world. Geopolitics had never been quite this bizarre.

00:15:47.800 If you want to enter into the realm of the conspiratorial, you can almost make the case that

00:15:54.480 Carney is setting this up so that the USMCA does fail, Kuzma does fail, so that there is no trade deal,

00:16:04.780 that he's doing what he can almost to set us up to break away from the United States in terms of a free

00:16:12.300 trade agreement so that he can go even further into the China camp and say, well, Trump doesn't want to

00:16:18.160 deal with us, doesn't want to give us an agreement. USMCA is dead. We have no choice but to cozy up even

00:16:25.700 further with the Chinese, which is what he wants to do anyway. What do you make of that?

00:16:29.700 I think that's entirely feasible because I think Mark Carney is not out for Canada's best interests,

00:16:37.940 which I think is continuing our relationship with the United States. However,

00:16:43.760 I don't think Mark Carney can go that far yet. Reality is not caught up with Mark Carney's vision of Canada

00:16:51.380 as being tied to the hip with China. We're not quite there yet. The reality is the United States is still 0.79

00:16:56.640 our chief trading partner and will remain so. So that might be Mark Carney's wish, but I don't think it's going to

00:17:02.120 make it happen. Here's what I think is going to happen, though. We're probably going to have an election in

00:17:06.740 2026, and Mark Carney's going to do it again. He's going to do the elbows up act. It's going to be the

00:17:13.220 Donald Trump is the existential threat to Canada. The United States is not our best friend. He's going

00:17:18.960 to try that one again. And yeah, I, you know, God help us. I think there's enough Canadians are going 1.00

00:17:23.940 to fall for that one again. If he does, my advice to Pierre Polyev is don't get in the ring with Carney

00:17:30.400 and Trump. Let them slug it out. Don't get in there with them because last time around,

00:17:35.460 you just couldn't win. You were never anti-Trump enough. And when you were too anti-Trump,

00:17:40.580 your own base didn't like it. So stay away from it. Let Carney and Trump slug it out.

00:17:45.840 But that's where I think Carney's going to go with this. An election, I don't think he's going to

00:17:49.920 allow USMCA to be dissolved just yet. How do people access your terrific show on YouTube?

00:17:58.860 The station is Creighton's right. And you can get me every day at 10 o'clock. It's Stand

00:18:06.920 on Guard. All right. David Creighton, thank you so much for coming on the show.

00:18:12.300 Always a pleasure, my friend. And that is it for this edition of Straight Up. Appreciate

00:18:17.200 you tuning in, my friends. Let's do it again soon, shall we? Bye-bye for now.

Juno News - January 22, 2026

Trump administration WARNS Carney over China ties

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