“Canada – USA Tariff Wars”

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is asking the prime minister to not concede to U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands during trade negotiations.

Poilievre says in a letter to Mark Carney that Ottawa has given in to several of Trump’s demands in the last year, including getting rid of the digital service tax and removing counter-tariffs on the United States.

Prime Minister, time for results on trade:

Zero tariffs on lumber, steel, aluminum, and autos.

You promised it. Now deliver. pic.twitter.com/GjULOizfkq

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) August 9, 2026

As U.S. President Donald Trump’s Aug. 19 deadline approaches, Prime Minister Mark Carney is making concessions to keep looming tariffs at bay. This could prove to be a defining moment in deciding the fate of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, for the choices are stark: appeasement or defiance, with little room for maneuver in between.

The Globe and Mail has reported that a deal may be in the making in which the U.S. lowers – but does not remove – duties on steel and aluminum and perhaps autos and forest products. In exchange, Canada would remove retaliatory tariffs on autos and take action on other U.S. irritants such as alcohol and dairy.

The Canadian government is preparing to meet some U.S. demands — including ending bans on American alcohol sales — as trade talks heat up ahead of the latest tariff deadline, according to sources.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened a new 50 per cent levy on hundreds of Canadian imports by Aug. 19, citing complaints about provincial booze bans, dairy import quotas and the auto tariffs.

The Canadian side is willing to offer movement on those concerns, according to industry sources with knowledge of the negotiations. The Globe and Mail first reported on possible concessions.

Here’s the Original Globe Story – Ottawa discussing trade concessions with the U.S. in return for some tariff relief, sources say

Canada and the U.S. are discussing a prospective deal in which Ottawa would agree to a long list of Trump administration trade demands in exchange for some relief on sectoral tariffs, as talks intensify ahead of another round of threatened American levies.

According to three industry sources with knowledge of the negotiations, the two sides have discussed in-depth proposals and traded written bargaining positions, but an agreement has not yet been reached. The Globe and Mail granted the sources anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks.

This ought to fun … agreeing to Washington’s interpretation of how dairy quotas should be allocated.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is warning that Canada will get tougher with the United States if there is no agreement to avoid President Donald Trump’s latest threatened tariffs, which are scheduled to take effect this month.

Canada’s goal, Mr. Carney says, is to get all of Mr. Trump’s sectoral tariffs, including those on autos, dealt with.

Canada’s top trade officials are headed back to the negotiating table Thursday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump extolled his tariff regime and lobbed insults against Canada.

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Chief Trade Negotiator Janice Charette plan to meet U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington today at 1 p.m. ET, less than 24 hours after Trump leered at Canada’s “nasty” leadership.

“I love tariffs, right? Because we’ve been screwed by tariffs used against us for years. By China, by Japan, by South Korea, by Germany, by everybody, by Canada,” he said to jeers from the crowd at the Red Rock Casino.

“Canada’s nasty. They are, they’re nasty,” President Trump said at an event in Las Vegas on Wednesday while criticizing U.S. allies over their use of tariffs against the United States.

“I love the people, but they’re nasty, nasty leadership,” Trump said of America’s northern… pic.twitter.com/AjH9FQtioc

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 5, 2026

OTTAWA – Canadian sentiment against buying American alcohol is higher than a year ago, with new polling done by Nanos exclusively for CTV News showing just under three-quarters of Canadians, or 74 per cent, are not likely to buy the products if they are put back on the shelves.

Human nature suggests otherwise.

Keeping U.S. booze off of LCBO shelves has done “nothing to move the needle” on tariffs, a University of Toronto professor says, arguing that the province should drop the moratorium on American alcohol.

“The alcohol embargo has been in place at this point for almost a year-and-a-half. It has not moved the needle in any observable way,” Joseph Steinberg, a professor of economics at the University of Toronto, told Newstalk 1010 on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty-five states sued the Trump administration Monday over its latest tariffs, calling them a pretext for replacing import taxes the Supreme Court struck down in February.

The United States last month imposed double-digit tariffs on 59 countries and the European Union, charging that they had not done enough to crack down on imports produced by forced labor. The new tariffs took effect just as the clock ran out on temporary tariffs President Donald Trump had turned to after the Supreme Court defeat.

In March 2025, Premier Doug Ford ordered the LCBO to strip American alcohol from its shelves and wholesale catalogue in a bid to pressure Washington to drop its tariffs on Canadian exports. Last week, Washington answered. President Donald Trump announced 50 per cent tariffs on nearly $20 billion of Canadian goods, including our beer, wine and spirits, and cited the provincial alcohol embargoes as one reason. The policy was sold as leverage. It has become a liability. Ford should end it.

There may be no more hazardous exercise for a Canadian newspaper columnist these days than attempting to interpret Donald Trump’s trade policies. To suggest that there might be some logic behind his moves to undo the rules of the global trading system that he insists have been skewed against the United States is to invite accusations of gaslighting on behalf of the most mendacious, immoral and incompetent U.S. President of the past 250 years.

Here it goes anyway.

“The only winning move is not to play.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney must be a fan of sci-fi movies, as this memorable line from the 1983 Oscar-nominated movie “WarGames” neatly sums up Canada’s current CUSMA negotiating stance.

It’s becoming clear that the Liberals have determined that there’s no good deal to be had with U.S. President Donald Trump. Rather than go through the motions, Carney seems to have pivoted to a completely new tactic: not playing the game. The current dynamic is surely far more appealing than the alternative: signing a revised U.S. trade agreement that’s substantially less palatable than what was achieved by either Brian Mulroney or Justin Trudeau in years gone by.