Prime Minister Mark Carney says U.S. President Donald Trump hasn’t given him any indication that he’s willing to walk away from the North American free trade deal that was struck during his first term at the White House.
Carney met privately with Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in Washington during the FIFA World Cup draw earlier this month.
Much of that conversation laid out the broad strokes for coming discussions around the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), which is up for review in 2026.
“What we talked about, the two presidents and myself, we talked about the process for reviewing, renegotiating, CUSMA. We talked about potential timelines, although we didn’t settle on specific timelines for that,” Carney said in a year-end interview with CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live airing Sunday.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer recently floated the possibility of the U.S. aiming to get separate deals with Canada and Mexico — or possibly backing out entirely.
Carney says sectoral tariffs will be part of CUSMA renegotiation
“Could it be exited? Yeah, it could be exited. Could it be revised? Yes. Could it be renegotiated? Yes,” Greer said. “All of those things are on the table.”
In a report tabled in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, Greer wrote that he “will keep the president’s options open, negotiating firmly to resolve the issues identified, but only recommending renewal if resolution can be achieved.”
Trump threatened to pull out of CUSMA’s predecessor, NAFTA, during negotiations in his first presidential term, and has made similar comments about CUSMA in front of the cameras at the White House.
But Carney said that the president “did not say any of those things” in their private discussions.
“My discussions with the president, President Trump — as have been President Sheinbaum’s discussion with President Trump — has been there’ll be review and adjustment to CUSMA … not that there will be any leaving it entirely,” he told host Rosemary Barton.
Despite the trade deal, the U.S. is still hitting Canadian exports of steel and aluminum with tariffs of 50 per cent, lumber with tariffs of 10 per cent and some automotive exports and other products such as kitchen cabinets with tariffs of 25 cent.
Carney won April’s federal election after presenting himself during the campaign as the best person to handle the U.S. president.
After the election, the prime minister has taken a number of steps to appease the U.S. administration — including walking back a digital services tax and removing a swathe of retaliatory tariffs on American goods.
Despite those efforts, a deal to remove at least some of the U.S. sectoral tariffs has not materialized.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been critical of the prime minister in the House this fall for failing to secure a deal on sectoral tariffs.
Poilievre calls out Carney saying ‘who cares’ when asked about stalled talks with Trump
“U.S. tariffs on Canada are twice as high as when you were elected saying you would get rid of them. You promised ‘elbows up,’ but then caved on dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs, the digital services tax and more while winning nothing in return for Canada,” Poilievre wrote in a letter to Carney in October.
Carney has defended his record on the trade file, arguing that Canada “has the best deal” with the U.S. because the country has a number of tariff exemptions under CUSMA that other countries hit by American tariffs do not.
“The challenge remains that the United States has fundamentally changed its trading relationships with everybody in the world, Canada included,” he told Barton.
“Having the best deal is pretty good … it can be better. It’s in obviously Canada’s interest for it to be better.”
Talks with the U.S. about reducing the steel and aluminum tariffs were reportedly progressing, but Trump called them off in October, triggered by an anti-tariff television ad campaign by the Ontario government.
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said earlier this week that the door is open for American officials to restart trade talks with Canada, but the next time for direct engagement on trade will likely be during the CUSMA review.
Is there any hope for free trade in North America?
Carney said that the current sectoral tariffs will “necessarily be part” of the CUSMA negotiations.
“The United States needs to make a choice around these, which is, does it recognize [and] appreciate that the U.S. itself is in a stronger position if there is relatively free movement of automobile, steel, aluminum, lumber, aerospace across the U.S. border,” the prime minister said.
“Does it view its competitors as Canada, or does it view its competitors as China?”
You can watch more of the year-end interview with Prime Minister Mark Carney this Sunday on Rosemary Barton Live beginning at 10 a.m. ET.
