Carney offers Canada’s help to implement Iran-U.S. deal as G7 summit ends

ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS — Canada will do what it can to support efforts to implement the peace deal between the United States and Iran and could help oversee funds to help Iran rebuild, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday.

Carney made the comments on the final day of the G7 summit in France, where leaders also issued a joint statement backing the plan to end the war Washington started alongside Israel.

“Canada is of course willing to help, if that’s appropriate,” Carney said in a media scrum.

The G7 includes Canada, France, the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and Italy. The European Union also participates in talks, though the bloc isn’t counted in the group’s name.

The joint statement also cited Canada’s ability to add additional energy supplies to global markets to avoid future supply shocks like the one brought on by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The summit, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in the picturesque resort town of Évian-les-Bains in the French Alps, included sessions on a wide variety of issues, including artificial intelligence and foreign aid.

But it was the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine that took up the lion’s share of the time, particularly as the summit began one day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the tentative peace plan with Iran.

The deal is set to be officially signed in Switzerland on Friday.

The G7 statement pledged to support the peace deal with a “multinational, independent, and defensive initiative” led by France and the United Kingdom to help resume shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Carney told CNN in an interview on Tuesday that Canada isn’t a “big regional naval power” so its ability to contribute militarily in the Strait was limited. But he suggested Canada could help on the financial side.

In a scrum with reporters on Wednesday morning, he elaborated on that offer.

“What you need in any of these accords is you need people to help implement them, third parties to help them implement them,” he said. “Moderators overseeing, if you have money that’s linked to — which is the case with this deal — which has conditions and linked to the fulfilment of those conditions and being managed, sometimes you have third countries do that.”

The 14-point peace agreement includes a pledge for the U.S. and its “regional partners” to come up with a plan to help rebuild Iran, including its economy. It cites a $300 billion financing package and says the plan is to be developed within 60 days.

Carney said Canada isn’t offering to contribute financially but could play a role.

“Yes there are risks, yes the accord has to be put into place, but the very fact of it and the fact that so many countries were involved in its development and are vested in its development does create knock-on effects, positive knock-on effects,” he said.

“That’s what I believe and, of course, Canada will do what we can to support the realization of this.”

Carney also said the “choke point” nature of the Strait of Hormuz showed the world the urgent need for diversification of both energy supply and transport. The G7 statement committed to accelerating the diversification of energy supply routes to reduce global vulnerability to the Strait of Hormuz, and to increase energy stocks.

“We welcome the potential for Canada to deliver significant additional capacity to global markets in coming years,” said the document.

Carney pointed to Canada’s plan to build new energy infrastructure. His government recently signed a deal with Alberta looking to get a new oil pipeline built to the West Coast.

“There’s intention to build out a series of energy infrastructure there. Canada has the ability to do several things, and we’re on the path to do several things,” he said.

Carney said he spoke informally with Trump at least seven or eight times over the first two days of the summit. He said he and Trump discussed trade, Iran and the president’s recent 80th birthday.

Carney said there was nothing to be read into the fact that he didn’t have an official sit-down meeting with Trump and noted that the president only had scheduled meetings with Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The G7 summit took place as trade talks between Canada and the U.S. remain tense, with no clear decision yet on whether to extend the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, or CUSMA.

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the sidelines of the summit Tuesday, and said progress had been made. He offered few details.

One of Carney’s informal chats with Trump centred on the recent deal with China that saw Canada reduce its 100 per cent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 6.1 per cent, with an annual import cap of 49,000 vehicles — about three per cent of Canada’s market. In turn, China suspended its retaliatory tariffs on Canadian agricultural products.

Trump previously criticized the deal, threatening new tariffs and saying Canada wouldn’t be allowed to become a “drop-off port” for Chinese vehicles entering the U.S.

But on Tuesday, Carney was heard telling Trump about Canada’s plan. “That’s good, I like it,” the president replied.

Carney told reporters on Wednesday that Trump had asked him about the deal and he explained to the president the “actual structure of the deal.”

“We are only interested in Chinese investment in Canada when it’s material Canadian production,” he said. “We’re not interested in kits being put together in Canada.

“We will only do what’s in the interest of Canadian consumers (and) Canadian workers.”

Fen Osler Hampson, an international affairs professor at Carleton University, said a prime minister who frequently texts and talks with the president shouldn’t need to make his case on Chinese EVs as an aside at a working lunch, with no leader-to-leader meeting planned.

“The gap between that advertised intimacy and a pitch caught by an open microphone is the real story,” he said.

Over the course of the summit, G7 leaders issued nine joint statements pledging, among other things, to reform how developing countries access financing, collaborate more on cancer research and respond to Ebola.

Statements released Wednesday took aim at countries with large trade surpluses and non-market policies that are driving an oversupply of goods, causing “harmful spillovers … and growing economic dependencies.”

“We will work together with partners to reduce critical dependencies and ensure that attempts or threats to weaponize economic dependencies fail. We seek to deter and stand ready to take actions, where necessary in a co-ordinated manner, against economic coercion,” their statement said.

This was widely understood as a shot at China’s industrial overcapacity. Other developed countries have blamed that overcapacity on Chinese subsidies artificially driving down costs, making it impractical to produce certain goods in the West.

The leaders also pledged to “reduce our dependencies on a single supplier outside the G7 and partner countries” for certain rare earth elements — another reference to China — to less than 60 per cent by 2030, and by half when possible.

In other statements, the leaders committed to preventing the smuggling of migrants and tackling drug trafficking.

In another document, the leaders said they stand united in their “unwavering” support for Ukraine’s freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

They said they agreed to boost defence supports and consider extending licences to allow for an increase in Ukraine’s military production. Macron said that would include boosting Ukraine’s air-defence capabilities, including its long-range capabilities.

The leaders also said they would strengthen their sanctions on Russia, including those on the oil and gas sectors.

The One Campaign, which advocates for global investment in programs to support Africa, said the summit was “disappointing, with leaders falling short of already low expectations” for developing countries.

The charity cited the lack of concrete help for African nations grappling with Ebola amid G7 aid cuts, or for those countries benefiting from providing access to critical minerals.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2026.

— with files from Dylan Robertson in Ottawa

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press