The United States and Canada were still negotiating Friday morning with just hours left to reach a final trade deal before President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on hockey sticks, wine and other Canadian goods were set to take effect. The deadline hangs over $20 billion worth of imports, while businesses warn the duties could cripple their sales and the threat alone has already taken a toll.
Who Holds the Levers
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and chief Canadian trade negotiator Janice Charette were scheduled to meet U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at 10:30 a.m. ET at Greer’s office in Washington, according to LeBlanc’s office. The meeting puts the machinery of trade policy exactly where it always lands: in closed rooms, with officials deciding what ordinary people and businesses will have to absorb.
The 50% retaliatory tariffs were initially set to begin Wednesday, but Trump delayed them for three days in an eleventh-hour post on Truth Social, saying Washington and Ottawa could finalize a tentative deal. That post signaled that the agreement was all but complete, subject to the finalization of documents. Even so, trade officials left additional rounds of talks in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday without a final deal. The public gets deadlines. The negotiators get extensions. The pressure stays on everyone else.
LeBlanc told reporters Thursday afternoon, “We’re very close.” He said, “We continue to make progress, and we’re going to stay here and do the work that’s necessary until we get to that point.” He added that Charette was still in talks with Greer and other Trump administration officials. LeBlanc also said, “Canadians expect us to get a deal that’s in the economic interest of Canada and Canadian workers.”
Who Pays When the State Bargains
If no deal is reached by 12:01 a.m. ET on Saturday, the 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of imports will switch on. That threat doesn’t land on the people making the calls. It lands on workers, sellers, and anyone caught in the supply chain when the bosses’ governments decide to turn trade into a weapon.
Businesses have warned that the duties could cripple their sales, and that the threat alone has already taken a toll. Negotiators have been tight-lipped about the specifics of a deal and the remaining sticking points. The New York Times reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the talks, that Trump’s existing tariffs on imports of Canadian steel, aluminum and lumber are a central concern. LeBlanc and his office have declined to comment to CNBC on how the metals tariffs factor into the negotiations.
Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. might agree to lower those duties and suggested that lower tariffs on Canadian autos might also be on the table. He also suggested that the deal could revive Keystone XL, the planned oil pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska that was scrapped in 2021 by then-President Joe Biden. The pipeline’s return gets floated like a bargaining chip, another project for the powerful to trade over while everyone else lives with the consequences.
What They Call “Agreement”
The Trump administration has said Canada has committed to lower its trade barriers on the U.S., without offering specifics. Trump said Wednesday that Canadian tariffs “will be nonexistent for our farmers.” The looming 50% tariff threat was partly based on Canada’s alleged discrimination against the U.S. dairy industry, a claim Canada has not confirmed.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said in an X post Wednesday, “We are now moving towards an agreement that reinforces that Canadian advantage, including by securing the best terms in each of Canada’s most important strategic sectors and providing greater certainty about our future trading relationship.” That’s the language of managed access and controlled damage, with the people at the bottom told to trust the people at the top to sort out what counts as certainty.
The 50% tariffs were invoked last month under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allows the president to impose duties in response to discrimination or unfair commerce. The law has rarely, if ever, been invoked and has been neglected for decades. Now it’s back in the hands of the executive, ready to squeeze trade partners and everyone dependent on the flow of goods.