No. At least not yet. At the time of writing this column, there are all kinds of stories floating around as to what is or isn’t included in the tentative “deal” the Canadian trade negotiating team has worked out with their American counterparts. It appears there is an interim agreement underway after President Donald Trump temporarily paused the 50 per cent tariffs he had threatened on about $30 billion worth of Canadian exports back in July. Both U.S. and Canadian officials said as of Thursday, Aug. 20 they were close to an agreement. This is probably good news, although we don’t yet know exactly what is in the agreement and what Canada had to give up achieving it.
What we believe to date is that Canadian provinces have all agreed to permit U.S. alcohol back into their markets. This was a major irritant for the US and was high on their priority list. Several premiers have said they would permit U.S. alcohol back on the shelves but advise Canadian consumers not to buy it. For other sectors, it appears that Trump has agreed to cut tariffs on steel and aluminum from the threatened 50 per cent to 25 per cent. In the auto sector, U.S. tariffs of 25 per cent are rumoured to be reduced to 15 per cent. Canadian government procurement rules that preclude U.S. suppliers are to be loosened.
What is to happen with another U.S. irritant, supply management in the dairy and poultry sector, is currently unclear with Canadian sources saying nothing has changed while U.S. representatives say they have negotiated more access to the Canadian market. There have also been indications that the U.S. has obtained further commitments from Canada regarding the purchase of the F-35 fighter jets, but details are elusive. Although negotiations on softwood lumber were also supposedly involved, few details have emerged about that sector to date.
All of the above is not yet finalized, so should be evaluated accordingly. What is odd is the timing of all of these developments. The Canadian Liberal government has procrastinated on dealing with the U.S. on this vital issue for Canada for the last year and a half. Months went by when the main Liberal point person on the negotiations, Dominic LeBlanc, was nowhere near Washington. The message the Liberals wanted to portray was that the U.S. administration was so difficult to deal with that progress could not be made.
Canadians were also told that “no deal was better than a bad deal.” Carney kept trying to present himself as the guy that was standing up to Trump, despite the actual reality that Canada caved to the U.S. on issues such as the Digital Services Tax, retaliatory tariffs and revenue-sharing on the Gordie Howe bridge, while getting nothing in return for these concessions. Yet, after accomplishing pretty much nothing over the last year and a half, suddenly we’ve reached a deal over the last couple of weeks? It certainly makes you wonder why this couldn’t have been done months ago, sparing the Canadian business community and consumers the uncertainty about what was going to happen with this important trading relationship.
Of course, the reason the Liberals were not motivated to achieve the agreement they likely could have gotten ages ago was because keeping Trump as the bad guy was working for them politically. Carney and his colleagues prioritized their partisan political fortunes over the interests of Canadians and the health of the Canadian economy. Although politics will always enter into such negotiations to some extent, this action by the Carney Liberals is truly shameful.
Another aspect of these negotiations Canadians should be considering is why we seem to have to get news from the U.S. on these issues as our own government keeps us in the dark. Oddly, a message Trump sent out on his Truth Social platform had more information about the state of the trade negotiations than anything the Canadian government shared with its own citizens. Even some Canadian provinces were said to be frustrated with not being properly informed by the federal government. This was also the case with the agreement around the Gordie Howe bridge, where the American news outlet Bloomberg was more forthcoming about the terms of the deal than the Canadian government. In that case, it turned out that Carney was dishonest on the terms of the deal, which would have motivated him to keep things quiet. It makes you wonder if we can believe him now about the Canada-U.S. trade situation.
More actual details about the trade deal will emerge over the next few days. Unless something changes dramatically from what has been made public to date, Canada is not coming out of this a winner. The Liberals will undoubtedly try to spin this agreement as positive, but it’s worth keeping in mind that although tariffs of 25 per cent and 15 per cent sound much better than 50 per cent and 25 per cent, we entered into these negotiations with zero tariffs on everything we exported to the U.S. If Carney was truly the negotiating whiz he claimed to be in last year’s election, we should have been able to renew CUSMA on more favourable terms. At this time, we can only hope the final result of this trade negotiation will be better than what we’ve heard so far.
She has published numerous articles in journals, magazines & other media on issues such as free trade, finance, entrepreneurship & women business owners. Ms. Swift is a past President of the Empire Club of Canada, a former Director of the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, SOS Children’s Villages, past President of the International Small Business Congress and current Director of the Fraser Institute. She was cited in 2003 & 2012 as one of the most powerful women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network & is a recipient of the Queen’s Silver & Gold Jubilee medals.
