Ottawa and Washington agree on one thing: the talks are over for now. They disagree on why.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced late Friday that Canada was suspending trade negotiations with the United States and promised to answer the new American tariffs “dollar for dollar.” “I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the U.S. and have directed Canada’s negotiators to return to Ottawa,” he said in a statement from his office.
The U.S. duties of 50 per cent on some Canadian products took effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, according to a senior Trump administration official. Carney put the affected goods at about $28 billion. Reuters and CTV News described the figure as about US$20 billion, and the difference was not explained.
Two accounts of the breakdown
Carney said last-minute changes to the proposed U.S. terms were “unfair” and “uneconomic” and weakened confidence that any agreement would hold. He said substantial progress had been made but important work remained.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Canada had declined to finalize a deal. “New demands and walkbacks of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” he said, after the U.S. had offered Canada “the best treatment of any major exporter to our market.”
The talks ran through a three-day extension that President Donald Trump announced on Aug. 18. Trump said then that the countries had reached a deal subject to final documents. No agreement was in place when the deadline arrived, Greer said.
What is still unknown
Products named in the statements and reports include hockey sticks, cement, wine, honey, essential oils and dairy products. The full U.S. tariff schedule has not been published in the coverage, and neither has any Canadian product list, value or start date for the response. It is not clear whether the talks will resume.
Carney’s dollar-for-dollar pledge is so far an announcement of planned retaliation, not a set of finished measures. How hard businesses on either side of the border are hit will depend on which goods are covered and how long the tariffs stay.
Sources
- Canada halts US trade talks over 50% tariffs
- Canada Halts US Trade Talks, Vows Dollar-for-Dollar Tariff Retaliation
