US, Canada hold last-minute talks to stop 50% U.S. tariffs

Tension between Washington and Ottawa is already high, stoked by trade disputes and President Donald Trump's inflammatory comments about making Canada the 51st U.S. state

WASHINGTON -- The United States and Canada have wrangled for decades over trade, poking each other interminably over sore spots like Canadian softwood lumber imports and U.S. access to Canada’s protected dairy market.

Somehow the two neighbors still managed to remain friends, allies — and trading partners. Canadian soldiers fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan after 9/11. The 5,525-mile U.S.-Canada border is undefended, and nearly 330,000 people and $2 billion dollars’ worth of goods cross it every day; 800,000 Canadians live in the United States.

President Donald Trump’s belligerent approach to dealing with Canada marks an extraordinary departure from the traditionally cooperative relationship between the two countries. Trump has hit Canadian goods with tariffs — in a push to bring manufacturing back to the United States — and has repeatedly made inflammatory comments about turning Canada into America’s 51st state.

The Canadian public is fed up. A petition to expel the U.S. ambassador, a Trump ally, has collected nearly 218,000 signatures since July 21. It accuses Ambassador Pete Hoekstra of having “normalized’’ Trump’s talk of annexing Canada, among other things.

Tension could hit new heights at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday if Trump goes ahead with his plan to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.

As the deadline approaches, the two countries are seeking a truce that would avoid the new round of tariffs.

″We are negotiating,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Monday, speaking in French. “The negotiations are very intense and delicate. This is not the time to talk about negotiations in public.”

Nearly 72% of Canadian goods exports last year went to the United States. And the Trump administration might be wary of imposing a hefty new tariff — paid by U.S. importers who try to pass along the cost to consumers via higher prices — ahead of November’s midterm elections. American voters are already frustrated with the high cost of living.

“I don’t think either side really wants these tariffs to come into effect,’’ said Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official. “There’s a pretty strong push on both sides to find an off ramp here.’’

Majerus said the United States is aiming to get Canada to buy more U.S. military equipment, including F-35 fighters; to take part in Trump’s “Golden Dome’’ missile defense; and to give the United States more access to critical minerals, thereby reducing America’s reliance on tenuous supplies from geopolitical rival China.

The Canadians would like relief from U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as softwood lumber, which America says receives unfair government subsidies.

Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his second-term economic agenda. Last year, he imposed double-digit import taxes on almost every country on earth, justifying them by declaring the longstanding U.S. trade deficit a national emergency.