Trump says U.S. farmers, manufacturers will be ‘thrilled’ with tentative trade deal with Canada

OTTAWA – U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. stakeholders will be “thrilled” with the tentative deal struck between Canada and the U.S., as negotiations continued Wednesday to finalize an agreement between both countries.

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“Our farmers are going to be thrilled; our manufacturers are going to be thrilled,” he said, during a press conference in Washington on Wednesday. “And basically, we have no tariffs going into Canada anymore.”

Trump’s comments come a day after he postponed a new round of 50 per-cent tariffs that were set to hit $29 billion worth of Canadian goods, scheduled to take effect at midnight on Wednesday.

The president offered a three-day pause on the latest round of new tariffs, citing a deal between Canadian and American negotiators.

In a statement Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney congratulated Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer for their significant progress in negotiations.

“Canada entered these discussions with the best overall trade terms,” said Carney, in a post on X.

“We are now moving towards an agreement that reinforces that Canadian advantage, including by securing the best terms in each of Canada’s most important strategic sectors and providing greater certainty about our future trading relationship,” the prime minister added.

Speaking to reporters together in Washington around noon, Greer and LeBlanc both confirmed there was a tentative deal on the table and that both sides were crossing t’s and dotting i’s.

“We’re very happy with where we ended up,” Greer said, noting that the deal eliminated “some of the irritants” of the last year. “We’re looking at documentation at this point,” adding that he still had to brief Congress and other government stakeholders about the tentative deal.

“We feel confident that we’ve reached an agreement that will not only continue to protect American workers, American jobs, American supply chains, but really strengthen the North American economy and create a situation where North America will continue to be an energy powerhouse, a manufacturing powerhouse, and align on important things like economic security and digital security,” Greer noted.

After Greer left the scrum, LeBlanc spoke to reporters and swore that Canada’s supply management system remained “entirely intact”.

“It was important to protect the supply management system we have in Canada. It will obviously be protected in the texts we are finalizing, but I’m not worried that our dairy farmers and our agricultural sector will be well protected. We maintained our hard line on protecting supply management,” LeBlanc said in French.

“We needed to protect supply management. We needed to ensure that the supply management regime remained entirely intact, and I’m confident that that’s the case,” LeBlanc said in English.

Negotiations have intensified in recent weeks after Trump threatened to impose a 50 per-cent levy on range of Canadian goods from hockey sticks to alcoholic products last month, using Section 338 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930.

The U.S. negotiating side was looking for concessions on Canadian retaliatory tariffs on autos, U.S. alcohol boycotts in Canadian provinces and how American quotas are treated in Canada’s dairy supply management system.

The Canadian side was seeking a reprieve from Section 338 tariffs and relief on Section 232 tariffs on Canadian lumber, steel, aluminum and autos.

Industry groups on Wednesday welcomed the delay from Section 338 tariffs but wait in anticipation for the full details of the tentative agreement with the Americans.

“This limbo state is not anyone’s preferred outcome — time is of the essence,” said Candace Laing, president and CEO at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, in a statement on Wednesday.

“We commend the negotiating team for their work and sense of urgency this week and call on them to keep it up: ultimately, a resilient and integrated North American economy would be a stronger one for all,” she added.

The United Steelworkers union national director Marty Warren, said Canada must “hold the line” in negotiations to protect Canadian jobs.

“Our test for those negotiations remains straightforward: Canada must protect Canadian jobs and industrial capacity, secure meaningful reductions in U.S. tariffs and give workers and industries the certainty they need to invest and grow in Canada,” he said, in a statement issued Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters from Charlottetown, PEI, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he is “relieved” that there was a three-day reprieve on the new U.S. tariffs originally scheduled to kick in Wednesday.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the new and excellent deal that is being finalized, one we expect and we believe should include an end to tariffs on Canadians,” Poilievre said.

“We hope that over the next couple of days we’ll hear the good news that Mr. Carney will have kept his promise, and the Canadians will get an even better deal than we had before.”

That means a deal that at the very least removes all tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber and exempts Canada from Buy America protectionist policies, Poilievre said.

In a statement, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet demanded that the prime minister brief all opposition party leaders Wednesday on the state of negotiations with the White House.

In light of U.S. comments on Wednesday on supply management, thee Bloc leader also accused Carney of having “abandoned” Quebec’s interests in order to protect those of Ontario and Western Canada.

National Post

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