In the long and often asymmetrical relationship between Canada and the United States, smaller nations have rarely had the luxury of patience. Yet Mark Carney finds himself in a historically uncommon position: a Canadian leader with his public firmly behind him, granting him the rare gift of time in a trade dispute with a far larger neighbor. Domestic consensus has become his most powerful negotiating tool, reshaping a standoff that might otherwise have resolved itself quickly under the familiar weight of economic pressure.