President Trump toned down his rhetoric about Canada on Friday after his first telephone call with its new prime minister, Mark Carney.
References to the “governor” of the 51st U.S. state that once punctuated Mr. Trump’s social media posts about Justin Trudeau, the previous prime minister, were absent, and the president instead used Mr. Carney’s proper title and his given name.
And after offering positive comments online, the president later suggested to reporters that Canada was not among the nations he believed have treated the United States unfairly in trade.
Mr. Trump has promised to impose on April 2 a variety of tariffs on American trading partners, including new ones against Canada. “Many countries have taken advantage of us,” but not Canada, Mr. Trump said.
He added: “I think things will work out very well between Canada and the United States.”
Earlier, in a social media post, the president described his call with Mr. Carney on Friday as “an extremely productive call, we agree on many things.”
Mr. Carney, the former central banker of England and Canada, became prime minister on March 14 after succeeding Mr. Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party. Mr. Carney is now in the midst of an election campaign in which the dominant issues have been the response to Mr. Trump’s trade policy targeting Canada and the anger over the president’s repeated calls for the country’s annexation.