EU and Canada to seal new alliance in Montréal under Trump's shadow

The European Union and Canada have long been friends. But it was not until Donald Trump 2.0 that they realised just how inseparable they had become, Euronews reported.

The two sides are set to bring their partnership to unprecedented depth and breadth at Friday's EU-Canada summit in Montréal, in the French-speaking province of Quebec.

"It has become clear that there's much more that we can do together," Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in a speech at the C.D. Howe Institute peppered with Canadian references, from Emily Carr to Leonard Cohen.

"Canada and the European Union are two complementary systems."

The choice of venue is fitting: with its stately architecture and Baroque facades, Montréal has often been hailed as one of the most European-looking cities in North America.

The setting also reflects the bloc's ambition to make Canada its closest non-European ally, a title traditionally held by the United States.

But Trump's re-election flipped the picture on its head.

The US president's punishing tariffs, threats of annexation, affinity for Russia and relentless attacks on the multilateral system have left Europeans bruised, battered and increasingly distrustful of any policy with Washington's mark.

In Canada, the shock has been maximised by its entrenched reliance on the US economy. The search for alternative allies is now an existential imperative.

Trump's attempt to turn Canada into "the 51st state" has demolished a neighbourly bond that stretches back centuries and was believed to be immune to partisan shifts.

The shared sense of vulnerability has been on full display in the lead-up to the summit.

Von der Leyen invited Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to her State of the Union speech in September. The Commission chief stunned the audience when she proposed to make Canada the bloc's first-ever "associate member".

Carney delivered his own speech in Strasbourg to pitch an "alliance for the future" built on shared prosperity and security.

This alliance, Carney said ahead of the summit, should be "strong enough so that no one can dictate our choices" and "open enough that others can join", a not-so-subtle rebuke to Trump's "America First" maximalism.

The meeting is expected to expand cooperation across multiple areas, including trade, investment, supply chains, AI, climate, security and the Arctic, and advance Canada's integration into EU programmes, such as Horizon and Erasmus.