A meeting between the leaders of Canada and the United States is not usually considered a high-stakes showdown, but there was little ordinary about this one. Here was newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney making his first visit to the Oval Office to see President Donald Trump,

Mark Carney, the new Canadian prime minister, was firm that Canada is “not for sale.” But he turned to flattery at times during an Oval Office meeting with Trump on Tuesday.

Despite the leaders’ early comments lavishing praise on one another, the meeting between President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney produced a curious exchange in which Carney emphatically said his country would never become part of the United States and Trump continued to muse that annexing the ally could still happen.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hit back after President Donald Trump said he wanted to make Canada the United States’ 51st state. Minutes after the two men settled down in the Oval Office, the president broached the elephant in the room,

President Trump kept it civil in the Oval Office, but Prime Minister Mark Carney insisted his nation was “not for sale” and Trump responded, “Time will tell.”