TORONTO, Aug 5 (Reuters) – When his teleprompter malfunctioned on Wednesday in the middle of a news conference on housing policy, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney smiled and took a swift jab at U.S. President Donald Trump, saying, “I do not view this as a conspiracy.”
Carney’s remark was an apparent reference to Trump’s demands for an investigation after he encountered a halted escalator and a non-functioning teleprompter last year at the United Nations General Assembly, where he delivered a speech.
“I would like to inform you that the teleprompter has ceased to function. Unlike a certain world leader, I do not view this as a conspiracy,” Carney said to laughs at the news conference in Toronto.
Carney’s office and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Relations between Canada and the U.S. have been fraught since Trump returned to the White House last year, slapping broad tariffs on the northern neighbor and calling for it to become the 51st U.S. state.
Carney, who has said he would fight Trump’s trade policies, has worked to lessen Canada’s diplomatic and economic dependency on the U.S. He also drew international attention for declaring the end of a rules-based global order and criticizing great powers for using “economic integration as weapons.”
(Reporting by Wa Lone in Toronto and Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Scott Malone and Edmund Klamann)
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