If Carney heads into his first full term in office with a somewhat cleaner slate in dealing with the US president, it will still be a precarious situation. While Canada has won a reprieve from some of the most onerous tariffs Trump initially announced on his nation, the clock is ticking – and striking some kind of settlement with the Americans will be no easy task. "We will have a partnership on our terms," Carney told the BBC on Tuesday.

"I would distinguish between what the president wants and what he expects." Carney went on to say that Trump's "territorial views" on his country are "never, ever going to happen". It was a familiar message, one he delivered repeatedly on the campaign trail and in his election night victory speech.

"America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country," he said on Monday. "But these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us."

Carney's rejection of an American takeover of Canada may not be enough to satisfy the US president, however. And it may not be possible for Carney and the Canadians to determine exactly what it is that Trump expects, either. He has said Canada must do more to limit undocumented migration into the US, which is low, and cross-border fentanyl drug trafficking, which is minimal.

He has also inflated the US-Canada trade deficit and said that the nation is "ripping off" America. Given the population disparity between the two nations and Canada's vast natural resources, a balanced trade ledger between the two could be an unreachable ask. Whatever Trump and the Americans ultimately want, the US, as Canada's largest export market, has considerable power over its northern neighbour should it wish to exercise it.

But, as Carney noted in his talk with the BBC, Canada isn't powerless either. "We are the biggest client for more than 40 states," he said. "We supply them with vital energy, conventional energy and potentially could supply them with critical minerals."

He also said Canada could look to "like-minded countries" for more reliable trading partners, such as the UK or the EU, cutting the US out of the equation. Doing so, however, would be abandoning a long and reliable partnership with the US, one that had been based on shared ideals as well as shared geography. Trump's first 100 days back in the White House has called all of that into question, however.

It's a rift that seems unlikely to be fully mended, no matter how well Trump and Carney hit it off when they sit down in person to talk. Additional reporting by Nadine Yousif in Toronto.