U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer might not like to think of it as a trade “war,” but whatever you call it — a difference of opinion? an incongruity? the unpleasantness? — it’s now been going on for more than 19 months.
In February 2025, Donald Trump, in defiance of a free trade deal he himself signed in 2018, first announced tariffs on a number of Canadian products.
And it seems now it could be several more months before hostilities are reduced, let alone ceased.
“I think it is more likely than not that the current situation remains unchanged until the end of the year,” said Wolfgang Alschner, a professor of business and trade law at the University of Ottawa.
“From the latest rounds of talks, we know that there is a potential landing zone but also that positions are currently too far removed to easily reach an agreement. The status quo is painful, but not so painful as to drive either side into forcing a change in position.”
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Mark Carney described the latest round of American tariffs announced earlier this week as “relatively modest,” at least “in the context of other things that the U.S. administration has done.”
That might suggest Carney doesn’t see a need to respond with further measures against American imports. The recent cycle of escalation may have reached a kind of equilibrium.
Carney also said Canada is “always ready to strike a fair deal.” But if one is willing to entertain war analogies, it might be said that both sides now seem dug in.
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer leave a meeting in Washington, D.C., in mid-August. (Kelly Geraldine Malone/The Canadian Press)
The fact that the principal negotiators — Greer on the American side, Dominic LeBlanc and Janice Charette for the Canadian government — have largely avoided the political fray and acted professionally may serve to keep a door open to negotiations, suggests Meredith Lilly, a professor of international economic policy at Carleton University and a former foreign policy and trade adviser to Stephen Harper.
Lilly also sees a few potential “trigger moments” in the months ahead that could restart talks. If the United States and Mexico were to come to an agreement on their issues, for instance, that could put pressure on Canada. The results of the midterm elections in the United States could also change the political calculus on the American side. And lingering in the distance is an American threat to impose new auto and truck tariffs on Jan. 1, 2027.
Trump could also conceivably try to force the issue with a new threat of tariffs, like he did this summer.
Perhaps less optimistically, there is Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew’s account that provinces have been told to plan for “two-plus years” of turmoil.
Is anyone winning this fight?
American officials may believe that U.S. economic power ultimately gives them the advantage — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has likened Canada to a “yippy” dachshund trying to pick a fight with a German shepherd.
But both Paul Krugman, the American economist, and Roland Paris, the Canadian foreign policy scholar, argued this week that Canada may have the motivational or political advantage, with Canadians largely united against a clear and potentially existential threat.
“Trade wars test not only economic strength but also political resolve,” Paris wrote.
Recent polls have shown high support among Canadians for taking a tough approach with the United States. And the Angus Reid Institute found a significant bump in support for Carney’s Liberals in the wake of trade talks collapsing.
That may strengthen Carney’s hand at the negotiating table, but could the Canadian public’s reaction conceivably make it harder to get to some kind of deal with the United States?
WATCH | Carney ‘looking closely’ at Trump’s import bans, tariffs:
‘We’re looking closely’ at Trump’s import bans and tariffs, Carney says
Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday that the government is looking at U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent measures which include bans on Canadian imports including most alcohol products and new 50 per cent tariffs on a series of other products. ‘We fully recognize that for individual companies and in individual sectors these are significant, and there’s a response there,’ Carney said.
Before negotiations were formally suspended, Charette reportedly warned her American counterparts that a breakdown in talks and the imposition of new American tariffs could push discussions over a cliff — the public and political reaction, she said, would only shrink the Canadian side’s room to negotiate.
David Coletto of Abacus Data has now made a similar argument, suggesting that public sentiment could be a serious impediment to a new deal.
“My sincere hope is that the temperature is turned down in both countries,” Lilly said. “In particular, the president really needs to reduce this very aggressive social media campaign that he’s pursuing. It makes it politically very difficult, if not impossible, for the Canadian side to engage.”
Lilly said she wonders if it would be harder now to even get back to whatever deal the two sides were broadly in agreement about when Trump first announced in August that one was likely.
A fight that will take the measure of Carney and Canada
Some Canadians may trust Carney enough to defer to his judgment on what constitutes a good deal — or the best possible deal under the circumstances. And public opinion polling would suggest he has ample political capital to draw on right now.
But no level of support ever amounts to a blank check. The Carney government may have been acknowledging as much with its decision this week to not move forward with at least some of its most controversial proposals to amend environmental assessment laws.
For the sake of maintaining a strong hand, there might be more Carney could do in the days and weeks ahead.
The Liberal government obviously didn’t heed the Conservative opposition’s calls to reconvene Parliament, while releasing the text of any draft agreement, as the Conservatives also demanded, may have been impractical or unwise.
But there is also something to be said for the emphasis Conservatives have put on transparency, not only as a matter of accountability, but for the sake of building trust. That might be particularly important for Carney if this fight is to only get longer and harder — and after he was criticized for his handling of the agreement to open the Gordie Howe Bridge.
On a larger scale, the collapse of trade talks and everything that has ensued over the last two weeks may only add credence to Carney’s contention that there has been a “rupture” and that Canada’s “old relationship” with the United States is over.
Much of the onus for responding to that falls on the prime minister, and it’s still too early to know exactly what path Canada will set out on.
WATCH | Poilievre calls on PM to release cost analysis of counter-tariffs:
Poilievre calls on PM to release cost analysis of counter-tariffs
When asked at a news conference if he supports the federal government’s planned counter-tariffs on the U.S., Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Canadians need to see how much the counter-tariffs will cost families and businesses, and what measures Prime Minister Mark Carney is taking to offset those costs.
But it is perhaps not too early to wonder if this moment is already leaving a mark on the Canadian psyche.
According to polling by the Environics Institute, Canadians held a decidedly favourable view of the United States for some 20 years, from the early 1980s to the early 2000s — from the presidency of Ronald Reagan through to the election of George W. Bush.
Canadian attitudes then plummeted around the time of the American invasion of Iraq, but more or less fully recovered with the election of Barack Obama as president.
There was another marked drop when Trump became president. But unlike the rebound when Obama came to office, the Canadian view of the United States did not fully recover when Joe Biden succeeded Trump, suggesting perhaps that some lasting damage was done.
If anything, the second four years of Trump have been more contentious among Canadians than the first four. And so even if a deal is reached in the next few months, it might be a long while before this trade war — for that is how people on this side of the border will surely remember it — is either forgiven or forgotten.