Trump updates: Canada’s Mark Carney visits White House amid tariff dispute

You can read our story on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s meeting with US President Donald Trump here.

And you can find more coverage of Trump’s second term as president here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s developments:

• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met US President Donald Trump at the White House amid growing tensions over tariffs.
• While speaking to the press, Carny told Trump that Canada will never become part of the United States.
• The highest US court says the Trump administration’s effort to ban transgender people from military service may move forward, handing a victory to the White House’s push to erode protections and civil rights for LGBTQ people.
• Thousands of students and workers have demonstrated in Panama over a planned increase in the US military presence around the country’s vital interoceanic shipping canal and other government policies.

While Carney praised the talks with Trump as “constructive”, he noted that there is still a long ways to go before there is agreement on issues such as trade relations.

“We have a lot more work to do; I’m not trying to suggest in any respect that we can have one meeting and everything has changed. But now we’re engaged, and very fully engaged,” he said.

Carney added that he discussed shared geopolitical interests with Trump, but did not offer specifics when asked if they talked about China.

During their meeting, Trump told Carney that he’s looking forward to attending the upcoming Group of Seven (G7) meeting in Canada, a senior Canadian government official said.

The 2025 G7 Leaders’ Summit is scheduled for June 15-17 in Kananaskis, Alberta.

The Canadian leader says he has discussed the strategic benefits of a collaborative North American approach towards auto manufacturing in the face of competition from Asia. Trump previously stated that the US does not want Canadian cars.

“The Canadian auto industry, and I would say the auto industry as a whole, is of the view that Canadian auto workers, auto companies, parts companies, steel, aluminum all play an important role in enhancing the competitiveness of American auto companies. So we will continue to press that case,” he said.

Canada is “not for sale … ever”. Carney, in an Oval Office meeting, rebuffs Trump’s push to make Canada the 51st US state.

Trump’s administration says the US will end a separate office for Palestinian affairs in Jerusalem, a largely symbolic step that supports the Israeli position.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio “has decided to merge the responsibilities of the Office of the Palestinian Affairs office fully into other sections of the United States embassy,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.

The closing of the separate office comes as Israel wages an offensive in Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government fiercely opposing moves towards a Palestinian state.

Bruce played down a wider significance to Tuesday’s announcement on the Palestinian office, saying it reverted to policy under Trump’s first term.

The decision is “not a reflection on any outreach, or commitment to outreach, to the people of the West Bank or to Gaza”, Bruce said.

She said it was part of a streamlining of the State Department in Washington, ensuring that offices on “the issues that are important are all working together.”

Anthony Tata, a former brigadier general who is Trump’s nominee for the position of defence undersecretary for personnel, has faced criticism over anti-Islamic social media posts.

In a series of social media posts in 2018, Tata said Islam was the “most oppressive violent religion I know of” and former President Barack Obama was a Muslim and a “terrorist leader”.

Tata was also grilled by Democrats who expressed concern that he might remove military officials viewed as insufficiently loyal to Trump.

“You called for a complete purge of Pentagon leadership, including firing all four-star general officers and senior career civilian employees,” Senator Jack Reed said. “This gives me concern that you have a misguided, biased view of the military and civilian workforce that you would oversee.”

Speaking about the Houthis, President Trump said the US is going to stop dropping bombs on Yemen. He said the Houthis have given some kind of pledge not to attack shipping lanes and wind down their activities.

There’s no evidence of that whatsoever. He was asked what his source is, and he responded, “Oh no, it’s a very good source,” and giggled with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio – like we know the source type thing.

But there are no reciprocal statements yet from the Houthis.

Then we have the issue of a “major announcement” coming in present days. That came in linkage to his Middle East trip. It is surmised that this may be a new development in the Abraham Accords. But that’s speculation. Trump gave no precise subject of that major announcement.

Follow our complete live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

The highest US court says the Trump administration’s effort to ban transgender people from military service may move forward, handing a victory to the White House’s push to erode protections and civil rights for LGBTQ people.

The conservative-majority court granted a request by the Department of Justice to lift a federal judge’s order that had blocked the ban while a legal challenge works its way through the courts.

“A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member,” an executive order from the White House in January stated.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced what he said were efforts to “revise” the history of the Second World War, after Trump said last week that the US contributed more than any country to the defeat of the Axis Powers.

Those comments were met with indignation in Russia, where WWII is known as the Great Patriotic War and is a crucial part of the country’s national identity. During the war, a Nazi invasion of Russia resulted in the deaths of millions of people and unfathomable destruction.

The legacy of WWII has been invoked in both Russia and the West during the current war in Ukraine.

“It was noted that the two countries were determined to defend the truth about the events of World War II, to counter attempts to revise its outcome and falsify history,” the Kremlin said in its readout of a call between Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The memory of the heroes of the war, those who gave their lives for the Victory, is sacred in both Russia and Israel, where May 9 is also a public holiday,” the readout adds.

Two Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee have called on US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to explain why intelligence findings that the Venezuelan government is not cooperating with the criminal gang Tren de Aragua (TDA) seem to contradict the public comments of administration officials.

The Trump administration had claimed that the gang was carrying out “irregular warfare” in the US at the direction of the government of President Nicolas Maduro, a key argument in its invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which grants the US president extraordinary powers during periods of warfare and foreign invasion.

However, an intelligence report that was declassified following a public records request concluded that the Venezuelan government “probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA operations in the United States”.

“Now that the public can read the IC’s analysis that the Maduro regime does not direct Tren de Aragua, Director Gabbard should explain why her public descriptions of this intelligence failed to correspond with the IC’s findings,” a statement from Representatives Jim Himes and Joaquin Castro reads.

Ranking Member Jim Himes and Rep. @JoaquinCastrotx: Now that the public can read the IC's analysis that the Maduro regime does not direct Tren de Aragua, Director Gabbard should explain why her public descriptions of this intelligence failed to correspond with the IC’s findings. pic.twitter.com/sAXUn04GQm

— House Intelligence Committee (@HouseIntelDems) May 6, 2025

Thousands of students and workers have demonstrated in Panama over a planned increase in the US military presence around the country’s vital interoceanic shipping canal and other government policies.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to “take back” control of the Panama Canal, which the United States built and controlled until 1999.

To deflect the pressure, Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino agreed last month to allow US military personnel to deploy to Panamanian-controlled bases along the canal for training, exercises and “other activities”.

The deal, which was seen as a major concession to Trump, has met with pushback from Panamanians, who oppose any perceived infringement of their country’s sovereignty after a 1989 US invasion to depose then-leader General Manuel Noriega.

Tuesday’s demonstration in Panama City, the biggest in three weeks of strikes and protests, was also called to protest Mulino’s bid to reopen a huge open-pit copper mine as well as social security reforms.

“Since Mulino took office [in July 2024], everything has gone to hell,” 27-year-old student Isaac Alba, who took part in the demonstration, told AFP.

District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein has ruled that the US president’s invocation of an obscure 18th-century wartime law to facilitate his deportation of undocumented immigrants is not valid.

That ruling mirrors another by a Trump-appointed judge in Texas, who stated that the act was meant for use in wartime and could not be used against alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Hellerstein wrote that the gang “may well be engaged in narcotics trafficking, but that is a criminal matter, not an invasion or predatory incursion”.

Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the US can dictate terms of trade to other countries because of the desirability of the US market.

But the US president’s erratic tariff policy could push countries to step up their trade with other partners that they view as more reliable.

Data released today shows Canadian exports to the US dropping by 6.6 percent over March, while imports from the US fell by 2.9 percent.

To learn more about how Trump’s tenure is affecting economic ties between Canada and the US, you can read our story here.

Here are a few highlights from comments to the press by the two leaders.

• Trump and Carney maintained a largely amicable tone, with Carney praising Trump as a “transformational” leader and Trump congratulating Carney for his election win, calling it one of the “greatest comebacks in the history of politics”.
• The two did spar over some topics, with Trump again suggesting that Canada would be better off as a US state. Carney quickly rebuked that point, stating firmly that Canada is “not for sale”.
• Carney and Trump said that a free trade agreement between the US, Canada, and Mexico is beneficial for all involved, but that some points may be adjusted when talks to renegotiate the agreement begin.
• Trump announced that a deal has been reached with Yemen’s Houthi rebels that will end a US bombing campaign in that country in exchange for a Houthi agreement to cease attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea. The Houthis have yet to confirm that such an agreement has been reached.

The US president says the Houthis in Yemen have told his administration they no longer want to “fight” and they would halt attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes.

“The Houthis have announced that they don’t want to fight any more,” Trump told reporters at the White House alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

“They just don’t want to fight. And we will honour that, and we will – we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated, but more importantly, we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships any more,” he said.

“We just found out about that. So I think that’s very, very positive. … I will accept their word, and we are going to stop the bombing of the booties, effective immediately,” he said.

The Houthis have not confirmed the pause. The US has been striking the Houthis on a near daily basis.

You can follow our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

The two leaders have expressed disagreements over the integration of auto supply chains between their countries, with Carney praising the benefits of shared cooperation and Trump saying that he is creating incentives to bring auto manufacturing back to the US.

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

Scott Bessent says that the administration has cut the federal tax collection agency’s technology budget without any disruptions.

“Last year, the IRS spent approximately $450m on paper processing with nearly 6,500 full-time staff dedicated to the task,” the Treasury official said in testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing.

“Through policy changes and automation, Treasury aims to reduce this expense to under $20m by the end of President Trump’s second term.”