Dominic LeBlanc says he expects Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump will have a conversation with each other “over the next couple of days” as Canada tries to find a way out of a 35 per cent blanket tariff on exports to the U.S.
“We believe there’s a great deal of common ground between the United States and Canada in terms of building two strong economies that work well together,” said LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, on CBS’s Face The Nation.
LeBlanc left Washington earlier this week without a deal, but he told host Margaret Brennan he came out of discussions “with a better understanding of the American concerns in the trading relationship…. So we’re prepared to stick around and do the work needed.”
Few Canadian goods subject to new rate
On Friday just after midnight, Canada’s tariff rate rose to 35 per cent following a Trump executive order that criticized Canada’s “lack of co-operation” in curbing the flow of fentanyl southward and for retaliating against Trump’s existing tariffs.
But only a very small number of Canadian products will actually be subjected to that rate — specifically goods not covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, which governs trade between the three countries.
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc insists there wasn’t a good deal on the table before U.S. President Donald Trump’s deadline of Aug. 1.
LeBlanc told Brennan that Canada was “obviously disappointed” by Trump’s decision to raise the tariff rate.
In a separate interview on Face The Nation, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Canada was the only country aside from China to retaliate against Trump’s tariffs.
“If the president is going to take an action and the Canadians retaliate, the United States needs to maintain the integrity of our action — the effectiveness — so we have to go up,” Greer told Evans.
Trump tariffs face legal challenge
When asked whether Canada should drop its countertariffs, LeBlanc cited Ottawa’s 25 per cent countertariff on U.S. steel and aluminum imports.
“There’s a 50 per cent tariff when we want to sell [steel] into the United States, so effectively we’re blocked from doing that. But the national security interest of Canada requires we have a viable steel and aluminum sector.”
Trump invoked his 35 per cent levy using a law that allows the U.S. president to take emergency economic measures to “deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security.
That tariff is facing a legal challenge that has now reached a federal appeals court, putting it further along in the U.S. court system than any other tariff lawsuit.
