{"id":847738,"date":"2026-08-06T03:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T03:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/847738\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T03:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T03:42:12","slug":"canada-ready-to-get-tougher-if-u-s-trade-deal-isnt-reached-before-deadline-carney-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/847738\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada ready to \u2018get tougher\u2019 if U.S. trade deal isn\u2019t reached before deadline, Carney says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s goal is to get all of Donald Trump\u2019s sectoral tariffs dealt with before they take effect Aug. 19, Mark Carney said in Toronto on Wednesday.Sammy Kogan\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> is warning that Canada will get tougher with the United States if there is no agreement to avoid President Donald Trump\u2019s latest threatened tariffs, which are scheduled to take effect this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s goal, Mr. Carney says, is to get all of Mr. Trump\u2019s sectoral tariffs, including those on autos, dealt with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tone is pretty tough. We are going to do everything that would be necessary if there isn\u2019t a deal on Aug. 19,\u201d the Prime Minister, speaking in French, said Wednesday at an unrelated announcement in Toronto, adding later: \u201cThe time to get tougher will be if there is a moment where there isn\u2019t a deal with the Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Carney said that \u201cwith tariff threats, we have options,\u201d but did not specify what retaliatory measures he is considering.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, decried Canada\u2019s \u201cnasty leadership\u201d in a speech Wednesday at a Las Vegas casino, naming several countries that he claimed have taken advantage of the U.S. on trade, including Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada\u2019s nasty, they are, they\u2019re nasty,\u201d he said. \u201cI love the people, but they\u2019re nasty. Nasty leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister\u2019s Office declined to comment on Mr. Trump\u2019s outburst.<\/p>\n

Amid the escalating tension, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Janice Charette, Canada\u2019s chief negotiator, are in Washington for the second time in as many weeks in a bid to drive talks forward.<\/p>\n

Mr. LeBlanc\u2019s office said they met with Jay Timmons, the CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, a U.S. industry group, on Tuesday, as well as Republican senators Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Mr. Carney said he had also personally had conversations with the Americans, adding that there were \u201creal negotiations, constructive negotiations, on several issues.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rita Trichur: U.S. alcohol industry rightly fears a nasty hangover from Trump\u2019s trade war with Canada<\/a><\/p>\n

Last month Mr. Trump announced that he would use Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 to impose 50-per-cent tariffs on US$20-billion worth of Canadian exports, including alcohol, dairy and electronics. These levies, which will take effect Aug. 19, have lit a fire under the previously stalled negotiations.<\/p>\n

The Globe and Mail reported earlier this week that negotiators have revived a proposal from last year under which Canada would accept a system of quotas<\/a> on steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. in exchange for Mr. Trump lowering his 50-per-cent tariffs on the metals, imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Talks involving autos have been less detailed.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Carney said the goal is still to get a deal that covers all these tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada has been very clear: We want all 232s addressed, all strategic sectors,\u201d he said in English. \u201cSteel, aluminum, autos, forest products.\u201d<\/p>\n

Autos are \u201cvery much at the core of what we\u2019re talking about,\u201d he added later.<\/p>\n

One industry source with knowledge of the negotiations said the U.S. has so far only made broad demands on autos. Because those tariffs are such a pain point for Canada, the source said, the Trump administration may be holding off on negotiating them in order to squeeze as much as they can out of Ottawa first.<\/p>\n

Another industry source said the U.S. wants to negotiate other issues before turning to the Section 232 tariffs once talks move on to larger structural issues in the North American economy. <\/p>\n

The Globe is not identifying the two sources because they were not authorized to reveal details of the closed-door talks.<\/p>\n

Robyn Urback: Carney would rather concede to Trump than risk short-term economic pain<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has said he wants interim agreements with Canada and Mexico resolving a long list of bilateral trade irritants before the end of the year. Negotiations over structural changes to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, including automobile content rules, will likely stretch into next year, he said.<\/p>\n

Such a negotiation sequence, however, would be tough for Canada to swallow, as it would entail making a deal on a host of trade issues \u2013 and giving up leverage in talks \u2013 without any guarantee that Mr. Trump\u2019s 25-per-cent auto tariffs will be lifted or reduced.<\/p>\n

Among other bilateral issues, the U.S. is demanding greater access to Canada\u2019s supply-managed dairy market and wants an end to Canadian retaliatory measures for previous levies such as provincial bans on U.S. alcohol and auto countertariffs.<\/p>\n

Auto negotiations are particularly tricky. While Mr. Trump has insisted the U.S. should not buy finished vehicles from Canada and Mexico, the three countries\u2019 production is so heavily integrated that the industry has been warning that the U.S. is hurting itself by imposing tariffs on its trading partners\u2019 production.<\/p>\n

The tariffs and countertariffs have already altered auto trade patterns within North America. Canadian car imports from the U.S. have dropped, while imports from Mexico and other countries have risen notably. Canada, in turn, is shipping fewer cars to the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fundamental message has got to be: \u2018Listen, if you believe China is your competition, Mexico and Canada are part of the American solution,\u2019\u201d said Rob Wildeboer, executive chairman and co-founder of auto parts maker Martinrea International Inc., in an interview, adding that Ottawa also has to make clear that tariffs raise the price of American vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you raise costs, people buy less. When they buy less, they produce less. When they produce less, there are less jobs,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

After Mr. Trump\u2019s 50-per-cent tariff announcement last month, Mr. Carney said that \u201ceverything is on the table\u201d as he considers how and whether to retaliate in the event the new levies take effect. Last week, however, he reversed course, ruling out restricting oil and gas exports<\/a> to the U.S. as a countermeasure.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister, who is typically careful not to unnecessarily provoke the mercurial U.S. President, at one point mocked him. <\/p>\n

When Mr. Carney\u2019s teleprompter broke down, he referenced an episode last year in which Mr. Trump accused the United Nations of \u201csabotage\u201d over similar technical difficulties. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike a certain world leader,\u201d Mr. Carney quipped, \u201cI do not view this as a conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Canada\u2019s goal is to get all of Donald Trump\u2019s sectoral tariffs dealt with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,714],"class_list":["post-847738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}