Negotiators from the U.S. and Canada are attempting to reach a truce on tariffs ahead of a 12:01 a.m. Wednesday deadline imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
If no agreement is reached, Trump has threatened to levy 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, spanning items from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.
″We are negotiating," Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Monday, speaking in French. "The negotiations are very intense and delicate. This is not the time to talk about negotiations in public."
Carney and Trump spoke by phone on Monday afternoon concerning the trade talks, Carney's office stated, emphasizing the urgent last-minute push to lock in an agreement before Wednesday's deadline.
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister for U.S. trade, met with Greer on Monday. He was tight-lipped afterward.
“The work is continuing,’’ he said. “We continue to do our job.’’
The two nations have sparred for decades over trade disputes, clashing over sensitive sore spots like Canadian softwood lumber imports and U.S. access to Canada's protected dairy market.
Yet they long managed to remain close allies, friends, and trade partners. Canadian troops fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan after 9/11.
The 5,525-mile U.S.-Canada border remains undefended, with nearly 330,000 people and $2 billion in commerce crossing daily, while 800,000 Canadians live in the United States.
Trump’s aggressive stance toward Canada represents an extraordinary departure from historically cooperative bilateral relations. In a bid to relocate manufacturing back to the United States, Trump has hit Canadian products with tariffs while repeatedly making provocative comments about turning Canada into America's 51st state.
Canadian citizens are fed up with the rhetoric. A petition urging the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador, a Trump ally, has drawn nearly 218,000 signatures since July 21, accusing Ambassador Pete Hoekstra of helping to normalize talk of annexing Canada.
Trump has placed tariffs at the heart of his second-term economic program. Last year, he applied double-digit import duties globally, claiming the longstanding U.S. trade deficit was a national emergency. In February, the Supreme Court ruled he overstepped his authority, striking down the duties and requiring the government to issue refunds to importers.
Trump quickly sought alternative avenues to rebuild his tariff policy. Last month, he levied 10% to 12.5% import taxes on 59 countries and the European Union — making up 99% of U.S. imports — over alleged failures to enforce restrictions against forced-labor imports.
He then reached back to Great Depression-era policies to find a weapon with which to hit Canada, one of his favored targets.
