Trump Withdraws Invitation For Canada's Carney To Join Board Of Peace
Authored by Omid Ghoreishi via The Epoch Times,
U.S. President Donald Trump has withdrawn his invitation for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to join the U.S.-led Board of Peace that will initially focus on rebuilding Gaza.
“Please let this Letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining, what will be, the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social addressed to Carney late on Jan. 22.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The notification comes after the two criticized each other’s comments on U.S.–Canada and international relations in public speeches this week.
Carney criticized U.S. pressure to take over Greenland in a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 20, and called for countries to not comply with “great powers,” saying the rules-based international order has undergone a “rupture.” He urged middle powers to band together to resist pressure from major powers, without specifying who the major powers are or making any distinctions.
“Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” he said.
“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”
His comments came amid increasing U.S. protectionist measures and days after his visit to China, where he said a new strategic partnership with Beijing sets “us up well for the new world order.”
In his own speech at the WEF on Jan. 21, Trump said that he listened to Carney’s speech and that the Canadian prime minister “wasn’t so grateful,” adding that Canada “lives because of the United States.”
“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way, they should be grateful also, but they’re not,” Trump said.
“Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
A day later in a speech addressed to Canadians on Jan. 22, Carney rebuked Trump’s remarks, saying Canada “does not live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian.”
Also on the same day, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Ottawa could risk jeopardizing the upcoming renegotiations of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) by seeking closer relations with China.
Lutnick suggested that Carney’s recent comments may be related to an upcoming election. He added that Ottawa’s decision to open Canada’s market to Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) may have an adverse impact on Canada’s free-trade relations with the United States, which he said is the “second-best deal” with the United States in the world after Mexico’s.
During his trip to China last week, Carney agreed to cut tariffs on Chinese EVs from 100 percent to 6.1 percent for the first 49,000 imported units, in exchange for Beijing cutting tariffs on Canadian agricultural products from 85 percent to 15 percent until at least the end of 2026.
Board of Peace
Trump’s Board of Peace inaugurated earlier on Jan. 22, with representatives from 19 nations joining the U.S. president at the WEF for the official launch of the initiative. The founding members are mainly Asian, with representatives from some other parts of the world including Hungary, Argentina, and Paraguay joining as well.
Other European leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin have also been invited to join, but they haven’t yet officially accepted the invitation.
Carney said last week that he had agreed in principle to join the board, adding that details such as financing still need to be worked out. Canada’s Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said this week that Ottawa had no intention of paying $1 billion to join the initiative, an amount a U.S. official had cited as the entry fee, which would be used to help Gaza.
Carney is the only world leader Trump publicly informed that his invitation to join had been rescinded.
The Epoch Times contacted the prime minister’s office for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Souring Relations
Trump’s remarks this week mark the first time he has publicly rebuked Carney, whom he had earlier addressed very cordially.
In his first administration, Trump publicly clashed with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on multiple occasions. At the conclusion of the June 2018 G7 meeting in Quebec, Trudeau told reporters he would not hesitate to respond to U.S. tariffs with retaliatory measures. Trump later countered by saying that Trudeau “acted so meek and mild” during the meeting and only made those comments once Trump had departed. A year later, during a NATO meeting in the UK, Trudeau was caught on a hot mic seemingly mocking Trump in front of other world leaders for holding a lengthy press conference. Trump later fired back by calling him “two-faced.”
Leading up to his second term, Trump repeatedly referred to Trudeau as “governor,” implying that Canada should be another U.S. state, while Trudeau said there “isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.”
During his election campaign last year, Carney heavily focused his campaign on responding to Trump, saying that Trump is “attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses” with “unjustified tariffs.”
After the election, however, he significantly toned down his comments on Trump, and dropped Canada’s counter-tariffs in a bid to prompt Washington to continue negotiations with Canada on trade and ease tariffs.
For his part, Trump on multiple occasions praised Carney. “I like Carney a lot, I think he is a good person,” Trump said during a meeting with the Canadian prime minister in Washington in August 2025. Carney has also had words of praise for Trump, calling him a “transformational president” in how how he has dealt with China, during another meeting with the U.S. president in Washington in May 2025.
Even when criticizing the anti-tariff ads featuring a speech by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan run by Ontario in the United States, Trump said that he has a very good relationship with Carney. “I like him a lot,” Trump said in October 2025.
The U.S. president suspended trade talks with Canada over the ad. Carney later said the two countries were close to a trade agreement had it not been for the ads. No new deal has been reached since then, and Ottawa now has its sights set on renegotiating the USMCA this year.
During an earlier televised address to Canadians in October 2025, Carney again used stronger language against the U.S. administration, echoing remarks from the election campaign, saying Canada’s “relationship with the United States will never again be the same as it was.” He largely avoided similar comments in public addresses afterward, before returning to the theme in remarks to world leaders in Davos on Jan. 20 and again to Canadians on Jan. 22.