Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney leaned toward President Donald Trump during a meeting at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, and in a low voice tried to sell him on a deal that lets nearly 50,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market. A hot microphone picked up the exchange, and what it revealed says more about the state of North American trade than any communiqué the summit produced.
"Less than 3 percent of our market, 49,000 cars. I thought you'd like that," Carney told Trump, making a horizontal chopping gesture with his hand as he said the word "cap." Trump's reply was brief: "That's good, I like that."
The moment, first reported by Newsweek, captures a Canadian prime minister who had just cut a trade deal with Beijing now scrambling to reassure Washington that the arrangement won't blow up North America's auto supply chain. Whether Trump's two-second approval holds up under closer scrutiny remains an open question.
The backstory makes Carney's quiet reassurance harder to swallow. In 2024, Canada imposed a 100 percent duty on Chinese EVs, a move that effectively locked companies like BYD out of the Canadian market. Then Carney visited Beijing in January and reversed course, announcing a deal that drops the tariff on Chinese EVs to a most-favored-nation rate of just 6.1 percent, with a cap of 49,000 vehicles.
In exchange, China agreed to slash its retaliatory tariff on Canadian canola from 85 percent down to roughly 15 percent. The deal amounted to a trade of market access for market access, except one side of the ledger involves a strategic industry that the entire G7 has flagged as a threat.
The summit's own discussions centered on China's "non-market practices," including heavy state subsidies and industrial policies that have allowed Chinese manufacturers to undercut competitors worldwide. For Carney to walk out of those sessions and privately pitch Trump on a deal that reopens the door to subsidized Chinese EVs is, at minimum, a contradiction worth noting.
Carney framed 49,000 vehicles as a small slice, "less than 3 percent" of Canada's market. That framing does the heavy lifting. But Chad Bown, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, offered a sharper view of the stakes.
"Canada importing 49,000 EVs from China reduces the potential scale achievable in North America. If it is also a Canadian sign that it wants greater alignment with China, that would risk fragmenting the broader North American auto supply chain."
Bown's concern is straightforward. The auto industry in North America, spanning General Motors, Ford, Tesla, Hyundai, and Toyota plants across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, depends on integration. Scale matters. Every vehicle that enters the supply chain from outside that system chips away at the economics that keep North American plants competitive.
Three percent sounds modest until you consider where it leads. If 49,000 vehicles at 6.1 percent works for Beijing, the next negotiation will push for more. China's EV industry, led by BYD, dominates the global market. A foothold in Canada is not the endgame, it's the opening.
The Carney-Trump exchange was far from the only unguarded moment at the G7. Breitbart reported that Trump was also caught on a hot mic speaking to European Council President António Costa about Greenland, pausing to look Costa in the eye and saying simply, "You understand? Greenland."
Trump's candor extended beyond geopolitics. The Washington Examiner documented at least five separate hot mic moments from the summit, including Trump raving about a White House UFC fight night during a roundtable and French President Emmanuel Macron telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, "Yesterday, we had a difficult discussion", a reference to his own tense exchange with Trump.
The Associated Press noted that Trump arrived late to the final day of talks and declared "I'm the boss!" to waiting world leaders. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, meanwhile, was caught by the New York Post's reporting telling fellow leaders she had quit smoking a month earlier and needed three coffees to stay alert.
The open microphones turned the lakeside resort into something closer to a reality show set. But the Carney moment stands apart because it wasn't small talk. It was a head of state lobbying for approval of a trade concession to America's chief economic rival.
Carney's January trip to Beijing came amid growing doubts in Canada about the reliability of trade with the United States. Trump had imposed sweeping tariffs, and Canadian exporters were looking for alternatives. Beijing was happy to oblige.
The resulting deal gave China a lane back into the Canadian EV market at a fraction of the tariff that had been in place. It also gave Canadian canola farmers relief from punishing Chinese duties. On paper, both sides got something. In practice, Canada traded a strategic position for an agricultural concession, and did so while its closest ally and largest trading partner was watching.
Trump had previously threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on Canadian goods if Carney pursued a trade deal with China. That threat hung over the G7 exchange. Carney's low-voiced pitch, "I thought you'd like that", reads less like confidence and more like a man checking whether the line he crossed was too far.
The broader U.S.-China dynamic adds another layer. Trump visited Beijing last month, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been invited to reciprocate with a visit in September. The relationship between Washington and Beijing is complex enough without Ottawa freelancing on EV imports.
Trump's own approach to China has involved direct engagement paired with aggressive tariff leverage, a strategy built on the premise that the United States negotiates from strength. The president's willingness to operate under pressure is well documented, and his brief approval of Carney's pitch may reflect a calculation rather than a concession.
Canada's EV market has been volatile. Sales were weak in 2025 after federal incentives expired. But by March, zero-emission vehicle sales had surged roughly 75 percent year-over-year, according to Statistics Canada. The rebound came without Chinese imports playing a significant role, BYD's presence in Canada remains negligible.
That fact undercuts Carney's rationale. If the Canadian EV market is already growing without Chinese vehicles, why open the door now? The answer likely has less to do with consumer demand and more to do with the canola deal and Carney's desire to diversify Canada's trade relationships away from dependence on the United States.
The leading automakers in Canada's EV space, General Motors, Tesla, Ford, Hyundai, and Toyota, all have North American manufacturing footprints. Letting 49,000 Chinese vehicles in at a 6.1 percent tariff puts those companies at a disadvantage against state-subsidized competitors, however small the initial volume.
Bown put it plainly: "Becoming competitive requires scale and for the auto supply chain to be integrated across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico." Every unit that comes from outside that system works against the integration that keeps the whole chain viable.
For American autoworkers and the communities that depend on North American manufacturing, the stakes are not abstract. Families across the industrial heartland have lived through decades of offshoring. They don't need a trade economist to explain what happens when subsidized foreign goods get a foothold.
The hot mic moment leaves several questions unanswered. Did Trump's brief "That's good, I like that" signal a formal acceptance of Canada's deal, or was it a polite acknowledgment that carries no policy weight? The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment.
The full scope of the Canada-China deal beyond EVs and canola remains unclear. Whether other sectors or goods were included has not been publicly detailed. And the source of the hot mic footage, who recorded it and how it was obtained, has not been disclosed.
What is clear is that Carney cut a deal with Beijing, dropped Canada's tariff on Chinese EVs from 100 percent to 6.1 percent, and then tried to sell it to Trump in a whispered aside at a summit where the official agenda included confronting China's trade practices. The gap between the public posture and the private pitch is wide enough to drive 49,000 cars through.
When a leader has to whisper his trade policy to an ally, it's usually because he knows it wouldn't survive being said out loud.
