US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent says Mark Carney walked back aspects of his recent Davos and China-related comments during a phone call with Donald Trump, though Carney has since publicly rejected that characterization.Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity, Bessent said he was in the Oval Office when Trump received a call from Carney. According to Bessent, the Canadian prime minister used the conversation to retreat from remarks made at the World Economic Forum in Davos that had drawn scrutiny in Washington. Bessent did not provide specific details of what Carney said, beyond describing it as a reversal or softening of earlier positions.Carney has offered a different account. In public remarks following the call, he said he stood by his Davos speech and told Trump directly that Canada had been among the first countries to recognize the shift in U.S. trade policy initiated by Trump. .Carney said he explained that Canada is responding by expanding international partnerships, increasing domestic economic capacity, and remaining open to building a new bilateral economic relationship with the United States through initiatives such as Prisma.Carney characterized the conversation as constructive and said Trump understood his position. He added that he “meant what he said” in Davos and communicated that clearly to the former U.S. president.There is no independent verification of the contents of the call. The Prime Minister’s Office does not routinely release readouts of conversations between Canadian leaders and foreign officials, and no official U.S. summary of the call has been made public.
