CANADIAN Prime Minister Mark Carney has called on the US government to “stop doing memes” and negotiate seriously if it wants to resume talks on a trade agreement.

But Canadian communists and trade unionists have warned against seeking accommodation with a Donald Trump administration Mr Carney himself admits is seeking to reduce Canadian industry to subsidiaries of US corporations.

Had Canada accepted US terms in recent talks, its own industries would have been “gradually wound down in Canada and wiped out,” Mr Carney said on Tuesday. “Of course, we’re not going to accept those terms.” He added that the US sought to dictate Canada’s trade relations with other countries, which was unacceptable because “Canada is a sovereign state.”

US officials responded contemptuously, saying Canada could not go “toe to toe” with the vastly larger US economy.

Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the country’s main trade union confederation, said that the PM had advised trade unions trade friction or even trade war with the US was “a new normal that we have to get used to.”

She said “walking away was the right decision” given US terms, but called on the government to intervene to protect jobs affected by the trade war and on banks to offer temporary mortgage and loan relief.

She also stressed the government should stop trying to weaken strike rights under the Canadian Labour Code review.

“Workers are being asked to stand together for Canada. This is not the time to drive a wedge between workers and their government by weakening their right to strike,” she said.

The CLC points out that the Labour Code’s section 107 clause, allowing the government to intervene to end lawful strikes and lockouts and impose binding arbitration, has been used eight times since 2024 after never being used to do this in the preceding four decades.

And the Communist Party of Canada said Mr Carney continued to support the renewal of the US-Canada-Mexico free trade agreement, “which will continue to strip Canada of its manufacturing base and hundreds of thousands of well-paid permanent jobs.”

It called for the trade war to be used to build pressure to nationalise industries and run them in the public interest.