Canadian and U.S. officials have until 12:01 a.m. on Saturday to finalize a deal
United States President Donald Trump announced late Tuesday night that Canada and the U.S. had reached a tentative trade deal and that he was hitting pause on the new 50 per cent tariffs for three days to allow for sides to finalize the documentation. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer congratulated Trump shortly after and said the deal had several provisions that protect American and Canadian workers and partners. But Prime Minister Mark Carney sounded a little more cautious. The Financial Post dives into what that might mean for Canada.
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Trump said in a proclamation on Tuesday that Canada “has expressed a commitment to remove the discriminations or unreasonable and unequal impositions at issue” and gave officials another three days to finalize the deal.
The proclamation did not provide many details, but in a Truth Social post Trump mentioned the Keystone XL pipeline project and said that it “may be awoken from the grave.”
Greer also said in a tweet that the tentative deal will include “comprehensive market access for all American goods, economic security commitments, digital trade alignment, and many important provisions that will continue to protect our market and American workers, along with our Canadian partners.”
Carney provided scant details about the deal.
“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,” he said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.
Trump has a history of announcing, implementing, pausing and extending tariffs using emergency declarations. Last February, Trump repeatedly extended short-term pauses on the 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico before they were fully implemented.