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But with the nights turning cool and the kids headed back to school, there are no spoilers here.

After a European adventure that has seen Carney hit more than half-a-dozen cities this summer in a bid to revive overseas alliances and assert Canada’s place in the world, he has made some important strides, particularly in dangling the promise of the country’s mineral riches as he shifts away from Trump’s America.

Thanking him for his “energy,” on his final stop Tuesday in Riga, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina noted that Carney had ”.”

But as busy and ambitious as Carney’s transatlantic wanderings have been, they have also exposed the limits of his plan and a hard truth: that some political frontiers will be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to cross.

New defence deal

Carney mapped out Canada’s route to closer ties with Europe early on, noting after his April election victory that “our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over.”

He cast his gaze eastward, across the Atlantic, and pledged to sign Canada up to the European Union’s €800 million ($1.3 billion) rearmament program by July 1, Canada Day.

He arrived in Brussels a week early, on July 23, but emerged with something less than what he had hoped for: a “security and defence partnership” described as “” toward participation in the larger defence program.

It’s both a promising sign and a warning for Carney, experts say.

It shows that Europe is open to closer political, industrial and trade ties with Canada as both adapt to Trump’s shake up of the old international order, says Frédéric Mérand, chair of the political science department at Université de Montréal.

But it was always unrealistic to expect that Canada would be fast-tracked into a program intended to primarily benefit Europe’s security and economy, says Achim Hurrelmann, a Carleton University politics professor and co-director of the Centre for European Studies.

“(Carney’s) clearly trying to accelerate things, but I think he’s also realizing that maybe not everything will go as fast as he would like to.”

More money for NATO

From there, he travelled north to The Hague for the annual NATO leader’s summit with a suitcase filled to the brim with cash (or, at least, promises of cash).

Carney had already pledged in early June to reach the alliance’s standard of two per cent of GDP going to military expenditures by committing to spend an additional $9 billion on defence by the end of 2025.

At the summit, he took a giant step further, signing on to a pledge to spend five per cent of GDP on defence purchases, which he has said could boost the Canadian defence budget to $150 billion a year, a fourfold increase.

The clear takeaway is that Canada needs to pay its way to greater prominence both in Europe and on the world stage.

Take it as a repudiation — or, perhaps, the fulfilment — of Justin Trudeau’s 2015 pledge that Canada was “back,” but Carney said it himself this week in a visit to Kyiv and a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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Palestinian statehood

Carney didn’t visit Paris and London this summer (he made his first international trips as prime minister to the capitals back in March) but the three countries came together in July to announce their plans to formally recognize Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly, which opens on Sept. 9.

The announcements were made in rapid succession, perhaps timed to look like the political wall blocking Palestinian statehood all these years was crumbling block by block.

Whatever the reason, Canada’s stance made international headlines in a domain where the country has traditionally fallen into line with other nations or been cast in Washington’s shadow.

That’s a good thing for a nation determined to make waves and impact with its foreign policy. But the risks of standing out on the world stage also quickly became apparent.

Trump reacted to French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement on Palestinian recognition by saying that “it doesn’t carry any weight.” But when Carney followed suit, that it would complicate negotiations to reduce or eliminate tariffs on Canadian goods.

That points to a “strategic limit” on Canada cosying up to Europe, Mérand says.

“I wouldn’t mind us throwing our lot in with the Europeans, but the reality is that the Americans would take it very badly and we’re so dependent on them economically and in terms of security that it would have consequences.”��

Support for Ukraine

August was an unseasonably busy month in terms of foreign policy.

It was marked by Trump’s Alaska Summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heightened prospects of a peace deal to end the Ukraine War.

But a rushed invitation for Zelenskyy and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Britain, NATO and the EU for a follow-up visit to the White House exposed the difficult job Carney has in narrowing the transatlantic gap.

Canada may be an enthusiastic member of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, a group of nations (all but three from Europe) eager to support and protect postwar Ukraine, but Canada was left off the guest list.

It may explain why he showed up in Kyiv last Sunday to celebrate Ukraine’s national day alongside Zelenskyy, emphasizing that Canada was the first western nation to recognize the country’s independence in 1991 after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He also pledged $2 billion in military equipment and assistance for Ukraine.

That includes the purchase of $680 million in American-made supplies and it serves as a reminder that in both political and geographical terms, Canada, like much of the world, still spins in the American orbit.

Canada’s critical minerals

Carney has developed a noticeable habit of opening his news conferences with fellow leaders the way one might begin a letter to a cherished friend.

But when he stood beside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and addressed him as “Dear Donald,” it was a term of endearment for a man he has known for more than a decade.

The point being that personal relationships matter and Carney, who was governor of the Bank of England when Britain left the European Union, has many of them on the continent. Tusk, who was president of the European Council during Brexit, is just one pal on the continent.

But Carney’s next stop in the German capital, laid out in rather stark terms that the Europeans are not just being kind to an old friend. They too have an interest in cosying up to Canada, which is home to critical minerals necessary for so many things, not least of them electric vehicles and military production.

He and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signed a ”” this week meant to encourage research, development, investment and trade of minerals like lithium, copper, tungsten and nickel between the two countries.

“The Europeans have an enormous need for these minerals and they essentially don’t have them on their territory,”��Mérand says.

With Russia, China and the African continent as the primary sources for these minerals at the moment, a stable, democratic country like Canada looks like an attractive alternative.

Trump complicates Carney’s message

The icing on the cake for Carney’s summer European tour was Wednesday’s jaunt to the Latvian capital to meet and greet the Canadian troops deployed as part of Operation Reassurance to defend eastern Europe and deter Russian aggression.

His decision to extend the Canadian-led NATO mission to 2029 puts a neat parting message on the busy summer tour: not that Canada is back, but that Canada is here to stay.

Hurrelmann, however, says that as Ottawa and Washington continue negotiations toward a tariff and trade deal, or on beefing up continental security, that message could grow muddled as Carney is forced to decide between its genteel overseas suitors and getting back together with a temperamental American companion it knows only too well.

“When push comes to shove, will Carney promise Trump big investments in the United States, or will he go with the Europeans? My hunch would be that the pull of the Americans will be stronger,” he says.��

“And if this is what is needed to spare Canada some tariffs, I think he would like go with that and the relations with the U.S. would take priority.”

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