Carney Calls Tariff Talks 'Delicate' And 'Intense,' Two Words Never Used To Describe A Deal That Gets Signed
Prime Minister Mark Carney emerged from a fourteen-hour stretch of negotiations with the United States on Monday to describe the process as "delicate" and "intense," adjectives that appear in exactly zero press releases announcing a completed trade agreement.
Officials familiar with the room say the Canadian side arrived with a 61-page annex on rules of origin for aluminium extrusions, a colour-coded chart of provincial exposure, and a former central banker capable of explaining currency pass-through effects in both official languages. The American side arrived with a number that had been chosen that morning.
"We made progress on the framework for a framework," said one Canadian source, who requested anonymity because they had already used the phrase twice publicly and were embarrassed. Sector-specific carve-outs remain unresolved, as does whether softwood lumber counts as lumber.
The deadline itself has now been moved four times, which economists note has quietly transformed it from a deadline into a recurring appointment. Business groups have stopped issuing statements of concern and simply left one on file with a blank date field.
Carney, for his part, has mastered the tone of a man delivering bad news about a mortgage. He does not promise a deal. He promises that Canada will be "clear-eyed," a phrase that means the country can see precisely what is about to happen to it.
The most delicate part of the negotiation, sources confirmed, is that Canada's leverage consists largely of things Americans need but have not yet noticed they buy from Canada. The strategy is to keep it that way.