As the clock ticks down on a critical review of North American trade rules, Prime Minister Mark Carney made one thing clear on Thursday: Canada is walking into these negotiations with its own list of complaints and it isn’t budging to get a seat at the table.
Speaking to reporters in the capital, Carney pushed back on any suggestion that the renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) would be a one-sided affair. He rattled off Canada’s grievances with pointed precision: a 50 per cent tariff on aluminum, a 50 per cent tariff on steel, and additional duties hammering the auto manufacturing and forest products industries.
“Those are more than irritants,” Carney said. “Those are violations of our trade deal.”
The remarks landed with force, coming just days after reports emerged that Washington had drawn up a list of demands described as an “entry fee” that Canada would need to satisfy before the U.S. would even agree to engage in formal trade talks. Carney was dismissive of that framing.
“It’s certainly not coming from me. It’s not language I’ve ever used, and it’s not language I’ve ever heard from the President of the United States,” he said Thursday, leaving some uncertainty about where exactly the characterization originated.
When pressed on what specific concerns the U.S. had raised, Carney pointed to “provincial actions” a thinly veiled reference to the wave of American alcohol bans that swept across Canadian provinces earlier this year, triggered by President Donald Trump’s imposition of broad tariffs on Canadian goods.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been among the most vocal advocates of those bans, and he showed no signs of backing down on Wednesday. “American alcohol will only go back on shelves when the U.S. removes its tariffs,” Ford posted on social media, crystallizing a standoff that has rattled the U.S. spirits industry.
The numbers underscore the stakes. Data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States shows that American alcohol exports to Canada plummeted 70 per cent in December compared to the same month the previous year. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office, noting the bans in a recent report on foreign trade barriers, flagged them as raising “serious concerns” and vowed to keep pressing Canada on the issue as CUSMA talks unfold.
Currently, all but two provinces Alberta and Saskatchewan maintain bans on U.S. alcohol sales.
Asked whether he might quietly urge Ford to dial back the bans, Carney declined to play that card. “He’s the client [for American alcohol]. He’s also the duly elected premier of Ontario,” Carney said. “He’s got a majority.”
The Prime Minister also took aim at what he described as a broader misunderstanding in Washington about the nature of Canada-U.S. economic ties.
“Yes, [the U.S. is] our biggest trading partner by far. We are also their second biggest trading partner. There is a symbiosis between the two,” he said. “Canadians get that. I’m not sure everyone south of the border understands that to the extent it is true.”
On Wednesday, Carney had already drawn a hard line answering a single reporter’s question about further concessions with a flat “No.” The message heading into CUSMA talks appears deliberate: Canada has its own demands, its own leverage, and its own timetable.
