WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday had a conversation that both men described as productive, although the Canadian leader said Ottawa would be imposing retaliatory tariffs next week as promised.
The phone call was the first contact since Carney won the leadership of Canada’s ruling Liberals on March 9. Carney has said that Trump’s threat of tariffs is a betrayal of a once close economic and security relationship.
“It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
That work “will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada,” he added. Carney on Thursday vowed to transform Canada’s economy to be less dependent on the United States. Trump’s tariff announcement is expected on April 2. Ottawa has made clear for months that it will impose countermeasures.
“The Prime Minister informed the President that his government will implement retaliatory tariffs to protect Canadian workers and our economy, following the announcement of additional US trade actions on April 2, 2025,” Carney’s office said in a statement.
The United States and its northern neighbor have long been close allies and trading partners. But relations deteriorated after Trump, a Republican who took office in January, upended the relationship with tariff threats and repeated comments about annexing the country.
Trump referred to Carney as the Canadian prime minister rather than as the governor of the 51st US state, the term he often used to describe former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Carney said the two leaders had agreed to begin comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship immediately after an election on April 28.
Trump, Carney say they had a productive call, Canadian tariffs still coming
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Trump, Carney say they had a productive call, Canadian tariffs still coming
- The phone call was the first contact since Carney won the leadership of Canada’s ruling Liberals on March 9
- Carney has said that Trump’s threat of tariffs is a betrayal of a once close economic and security relationship
Treason trial of South Sudan’s suspended VP is further eroding peace deal, UN experts say
- The experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other across much of the country
- “Years of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,” the experts said
UNITED NATIONS: The treason trial of South Sudan’s suspended vice president is further eroding a 2018 peace agreement he signed with President Salva Kiir, UN experts warned in a new report.
As Riek Machar’s trial is taking place in the capital, Juba, the experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other across much of the country and there is a threat of renewed major conflict.
UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the UN Security Council last month that the crisis in South Sudan is escalating, “a breaking point” has become visible, and time is running “dangerously short” to bring the peace process back on track.
There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict, but the country slid into a civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions, when forces loyal to Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled those loyal to Machar, an ethnic Nuer.
More than 400,000 people were killed in the war, which ended with the 2018 peace agreement that brought Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity. But implementation has been slow, and a long-delayed presidential election is now scheduled for December 2026.
The panel of UN experts stressed in a report this week that the political and security landscape in South Sudan looks very different today than it did in 2018 and that “the conflict that now threatens looks much different to those that came before.”
“Years of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,” the experts said, “resulting in a patchwork of uniformed soldiers, defectors and armed community defense groups that are increasingly preoccupied by local struggles and often unenthused by the prospect of a national confrontation. ”
With limited supplies and low morale, South Sudan’s military has relied increasingly on aerial bombings that are “relatively indiscriminate” to disrupt the opposition, the experts said.
In a major escalation of tensions in March, a Nuer militia seized an army garrison. Kiir’s government responded, charging Machar and seven other opposition figures with treason, murder, terrorism and other crimes.
The UN experts said Kiir and his allies insist that, despite having dismissed Machar, implementation of the peace agreement is unaffected, pointing to a faction of the opposition led by Stephen Par Kuol that is still engaged in the peace process.
Those who refused to join Kuol and sided with Machar’s former deputy, Natheniel Oyet, “have largely been removed from their positions, forcing many to flee the country,” the experts said in the report.
The African Union, regional countries and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, have all called for Machar’s release and stressed their strong support for implementation of the 2018 agreement, the panel said.
According to the latest international assessment, 7.7 million people — 57 percent of the population — face “crisis” levels of food insecurity, with pockets of famine in some communities most affected by renewed fighting, the panel said.
