Some US Tariff-Relief Deals Are Worthless, Canada’s Carney Tells CBC

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(Bloomberg) — Prime Minister Mark Carney told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. he’s in no hurry to sign a minor deal for tariff relief with the US, arguing that other governments that have done so aren’t happy with the results.

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“A lot of countries rushed into deals with the US. They weren’t really worth the paper they were written on,” Carney told the broadcaster in an interview that aired Monday. 

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In private, other countries’ leaders are “certainly not” happy with the agreements they signed to reduce US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on their goods, Carney said — though he didn’t name them. 

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Trump has threatened to change some deals after he signing them, such as a pact with the UK.  

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Unlike many countries, a large majority of goods from Canada are currently imported tariff-free by US buyers, thanks to an exemption recognizing the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed by Trump in 2020. Canada is a huge supplier of oil, fertilizer and other raw materials to the US, and adding import taxes to those would add to US inflationary pressures. 

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But high US tariffs against foreign autos, steel, aluminum and lumber are hitting Canada’s economy and causing job losses because those industries are interlinked with the US market. 

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Carney told the CBC he doesn’t want to strike an imperfect “small deal that disadvantages us” simply to win relief in those industries.

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“We could sit down this afternoon and hammer the whole thing out over the course of 10 days if the US side — which has other things to do, I acknowledge that — had the bandwidth and the inclination to go through it,” he told the CBC. “But it takes two to negotiate it through, and they’re not all the way there.”

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Carney’s CBC interview comes days after senior US and Canadian officials shared a flurry of public updates on the roadblocks each side sees as they approach a scheduled review of the USMCA.   

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US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer threatened unspecified “enforcement action” because Canadian provinces have taken US alcohol out of state-run liquor stores in retaliation for US tariffs. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also lambasted Canadian limits on dairy imports.

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Carney fired back last week, calling US tariffs a violation of the countries’ 2020 trade deal. His new chief trade negotiator said Canada wants to see some recognition by the White House that Canada has already made concessions on trade, such as removing a digital services tax at Trump’s request.

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There has been little public progress in US-Canada tariff talks since October. The two countries were close to a limited deal on metals before Trump terminated negotiations. The president said it was in retaliation for an anti-tariff television commercial from the province of Ontario which quoted former US President Ronald Reagan. 

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Carney said there’s no doubt that the final decision on trade issues is up to one man. “He’s the decision-maker, full stop, on these issues and all other issues,” the prime minister said of Trump. 

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