Canada sees long trade war with U.S. that may last beyond midterms

In a poll taken since talks collapsed, three in four Canadians endorsed Mark Carney’s decision to walk away from negotiations. Photo by HYUNGCHEOL PARK/Postmedia

Article content

Article content

The Canadian leader, who said he will prepare a domestic aid package to help businesses hurt by United States tariffs, is designing those measures to ride out the balance of Trump’s term if necessary, added the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.

Article content

Article content

Article content

The preparations from Carney signal the gravity of the breakdown in talks late Friday, which led Trump to impose new tariffs and Carney to announce retaliation, risking a spiralling trade fight between the two closely integrated economies.

Article content

Article content

While Carney’s government sees no sign of new talks in the near future — and only a dim chance before the midterms — some of the people cautioned the situation remains fluid and the U.S. has not ruled out a restart.

Article content

The sudden collapse of talks has left Carney bracing for the risk of a long winter. He announced Saturday that he’d roll out a domestic aid package, and told premiers over the weekend that the support would remain in place for the duration of the conflict and throughout the rest of Trump’s term if need be, one of the people said.

Article content

“We will support these businesses for as long as it takes, in other words, beyond the life of this U.S. administration,” Carney told reporters. “So there’s various mechanisms that we’ve worked up. We’ll give all the details in a few days.”

Article content

Carney’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment Sunday evening. In an interview earlier in the day, his ambassador to Washington, Mark Wiseman, said Carney’s decision to enact his retaliation on Sept. 8 is not a sign of an anticipated last-minute return to talks. “I don’t think it should be viewed that way,” he said.

Article content

Article content

Article content

The U.S. has said the path for talks is unclear. “It’s hard to say. We don’t have new talks planned with the Canadians. We’re moving forward with measures that respond to Canadian retaliation,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Fox News on Saturday.

Article content

Article content

Wiseman also signalled that the two countries remain in constant contact on a range of files, while sidestepping a question on whether they’ve discussed trade since Friday’s eruption.

Article content

“We talk to the Americans every day,” he said. “We will continue to talk to all kinds of members of the U.S. administration because we have to because we’re neighbours, we’re friends, we’re allies, and that’s the way we’ve always operated.”

Article content

The breakdown Friday night cast a cloud over U.S.-Canadian ties and sowed confusion throughout the weekend. Carney announced counter-tariffs but hasn’t specified them, leaving it unclear how far he will go to target swing states in November’s midterm vote. Meanwhile, top U.S. officials needled Canada — Trump said it wanted the benefits of statehood, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called Canada “foolish” — but the response has been, by Trump’s standard, relatively muted so far.