Canada has been caught up in the new administration’s stop-start tariff rollout, which has hit goods not covered under an existing free trade arrangement with levies of up to 25%.

Canada’s autos, steel, and aluminum exports have also been hit by the tariffs.

“We have a tremendous deficit with Canada,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House, with Carney seated just a few feet away.

“It’s hard to justify subsidising Canada to the tune of maybe US$200 billion a year,” he said, adding: “We protect Canada militarily, and we always will.”

The US’ trade deficit with Canada was US$63.3 billion last year, according to the US trade representative’s office.

The far higher figure of US$200 billion often cited by Trump also takes into account how much US defence spending benefits Canada, a member of the Trump transition team told CNN in mid-January, ahead of his return to office.

Returning to the issue of trade, Trump said America’s northern neighbour would soon have to “take care of itself economically.”

“We don’t really want cars from Canada, and we put tariffs on cars from Canada,” he said. “And at a certain point, it won’t make economic sense for Canada to build those cars.”

“We really don’t want Canadian steel, and we don’t want Canadian aluminium and various other things, because we want to be able to do it ourselves,” he added.

The White House previously estimated that around 38% of Canadian imports to the US and around half of all Mexican imports, are covered by the existing US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and are currently not subject to the sweeping tariffs.

A large part of Canada’s US imports not covered by the USMCA exemption are energy products, which currently face a lower 10% tariff rate.

The USMCA is due for review next year.