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By Steve Mollman
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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has set a new timeline for an unprecedented partnership with the European Union, saying he expects negotiations to conclude in June as Canada seeks to reduce its reliance on the United States amid tensions with President Donald Trump.
Carney said Friday that Canadian Cabinet ministers and European commissioners would meet in March to advance negotiations before he attends European Council meetings in June, when he expects the talks to conclude.
The proposed relationship would stop short of Canada joining the EU but could make it the bloc's first "associate member," a designation that has no precedent in EU treaties and has faced resistance from some European governments.
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"In parallel, we are working towards the deepest possible partnership, short of accession—with Canada becoming the European Union's first Associate Member," Carney told reporters Friday.
The fresh timeline emerged at the end of a two-day Canada-EU summit in Montreal, where Carney, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa launched an "Alliance for the Future" aimed at expanding economic, technological and security cooperation.
The White House on Friday referred Newsweek to Trump's comments to reporters last month, in which he called the idea of Canada becoming an EU associate member "laughable" and threatened economic retaliation if he viewed the move as hostile.
"If I think it's at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things," Trump said. "If it's a bad intention, we'll put very heavy tariffs on Europe."
Newsweek reached out to Carney’s office and the European Commission for comment on Friday.
Why Canada Is Moving Closer to the European Union
The proposed partnership is part of Carney's drive to make Canada less vulnerable to U.S. economic pressure after Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian goods and repeatedly raised the prospect of Canada becoming America's 51st state.
Relations deteriorated further this summer after U.S.-Canada trade negotiations broke down and the Trump administration imposed 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian imports. Ottawa responded with retaliatory tariffs.
Carney said at the time that Canada had recognized "that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship."
The U.S. accounted for 71.7 percent of Canadian merchandise exports in 2025, down from 75.9 percent the year before, according to Statistics Canada, the country's national statistical agency.
Carney has made diversification a central part of his response to Trump, arguing that economic dependence can leave countries vulnerable to political pressure.
That strategy has already pushed Ottawa closer to European allies. Addressing the European Parliament in September, Carney warned that economic integration had become a form of leverage and argued that countries needed sufficient resilience to prevent others from controlling their markets or threatening their sovereignty.
What Mark Carney and the EU Agreed in Montreal
Friday's summit produced more than a timetable for future negotiations.
Canada and the EU announced progress on digital trade, European investment in Canadian critical minerals and artificial intelligence as part of their new Alliance for the Future.
The two sides concluded substantive negotiations on a digital trade agreement designed to make it easier for businesses to operate across the Atlantic. Canada and the European Investment Bank also concluded negotiations on an agreement intended to encourage European investment in Canada's critical-minerals sector.
Canada will participate in a European supercomputing initiative, while the two sides will explore linking their instant-payment systems.
They also agreed to study the feasibility of sending Canadian liquefied natural gas to Europe, explore new undersea cable connections and begin negotiations on expanding Canada's participation in Erasmus+, the European student-exchange program.
Cooperation is also set to expand in defense, cybersecurity, Arctic security, border security and efforts to counter foreign interference.
Costa described the arrangement as potentially the closest relationship the EU has established with a country outside the bloc.
"Canada is by far the most European of non-European countries," he said.
Von der Leyen said geographic location should not determine the depth of a country's relationship with Europe.
"It is not so important where the countries are on the map," she said. "What is important are the values that a country defends and where countries stand in international relations."
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Canada's 'Associate Member' Plan Faces a Major Hurdle
Despite Carney's June target, a significant disagreement remains over what the new relationship will actually be called and how it would work.
The joint declaration issued Friday does not refer to Canada as an "associate member." Instead, Canada and the EU committed themselves to defining an "ever-closer association."
Reuters reported before the summit that Germany was among EU countries resisting the associate-member terminology because the concept has no existing legal status and its meaning has not been defined.
That makes Carney's comments Friday notable: he continued explicitly to embrace the associate-member goal even though the term did not survive negotiations over the summit declaration.
Von der Leyen has also continued to support the concept.
"We want Canada as close a partner as possible to the European Union," she said Friday. "We know that Canada cannot be a full-fledged member of the European Union, but to have a relationship as close as possible, this is our goal."
Carney had sought to play down the dispute over terminology earlier this week, saying: "The good news is it doesn't matter about specific names or nomenclature. What matters is the difference it will make to the lives of Canadians."
Donald Trump's Threats Loom Over Canada-EU Talks
The negotiations carry particular geopolitical significance because Trump's policies have helped drive both Canada and Europe to seek greater economic independence.
Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on Canada during his second term, while Canada has retaliated against U.S. goods. He has also repeatedly spoken of Canada becoming the 51st state, rhetoric Carney has forcefully rejected.
The tensions come days before the U.S. midterm elections, with Trump's Canada tariffs emerging as an issue in closely watched Senate races in Michigan and Maine, where Republican candidates have pushed back against the policy.
Earlier this year, Carney said the old U.S.-Canada relationship was not coming back. Yet he has also argued that a stronger, more diversified Canada could ultimately make it a better American ally.
His message in Montreal focused again on sovereignty rather than a clean break with Washington.
“Above all, this is about sovereignty,” Carney said. “Our ability to live our lives as we wish.”
Newsweek reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Samantha Beech and Gray R. Thomas
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