Canada Rejects Latest U.S. Tariff Offer, Which Sources Describe As A Napkin With The Word 'No' On It
Negotiations between Canada and the United States have reached the stage where both sides brief reporters about how unsatisfied they are, which in trade terms counts as progress.
Sources say Canada found the latest American offer inadequate. Sources on the American side say Canada is difficult. Both statements are true, and neither is a deal. The file has now been open long enough that a junior analyst who joined the tariff team as a summer student has been promoted twice and still cannot explain what the softwood lumber dispute is about, which puts her exactly level with everyone else in the building.
The Canadian strategy remains what it has been since 2018: absorb the hit, mention it politely at a press conference, and announce a support programme for the affected sector with a name like the Sectoral Resilience Accelerator Fund. The American strategy is to raise a number, then raise it again on a Sunday night, then deny having raised it.
What neither side will admit is that the actual negotiation happens between two deputy ministers who text each other and agree, roughly, on everything. The delay is entirely upstream, where the politics live.
Ottawa's official line is that no deal is better than a bad deal. This is the position of a country that has spent seven years discovering it can survive a bad deal, which is not the same as enjoying one.
A senior official summarised the state of talks as "constructive." Asked what changed since June, the official said the word had been upgraded from "ongoing."