‘We have more work to do’, says Canada negotiator as US trade deadline looms

Midnight Deadline Pressures Mount as Ottawa and Washington Race to Close Trade Framework

Constantvpn.com – With the clock ticking toward a midnight cutoff set by the White House, Canadian trade minister Dominic LeBlanc departed a marathon session in Washington on Friday evening with a message that left little room for celebration: the work was unfinished. After roughly eight hours of face-to-face talks with United States trade representative Jamieson Greer and other senior negotiators — one of the longest single sessions of the entire negotiation — LeBlanc told reporters that his team would keep pushing “up until the last minute.”

“Our job is not finished,” LeBlanc said, adding that negotiators “have more work to do.”

The stakes of that final push are considerable. Failure to lock in a tentative agreement before the deadline would expose a broad swath of Canadian exports to a fresh tranche of American tariffs, compounding the trade disruption already weighing on manufacturers, farmers, and exporters across the country.

What the Framework Appears to Contain

The full text of the proposed arrangement had not been released publicly as of Friday evening, but details that surfaced through multiple media outlets pointed to a partial rollback of the punitive duties imposed earlier in the year. Under the leaked parameters, Washington would cut tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium from 50 percent to 25 percent, and reduce duties on Canadian-built automobiles from 25 percent to 15 percent. Those figures, while still substantial, represent a meaningful step back from the worst-case scenario that had rattled Canadian industry for months.

Beyond metals and vehicles, the framework reportedly involves Canada restoring the sale of American alcoholic beverages in its retail channels — a concession that requires buy-in from provincial governments, since liquor distribution falls under provincial jurisdiction. In exchange, Ottawa is said to be weighing expanded market access for American dairy producers and the removal of retaliatory tariffs it had levied on US goods. Canada’s dairy sector, long protected by supply-management rules, sits squarely in the crosshairs of the American negotiating position.

Trump Signals Momentum, Pauses New Duties

Hours before the deadline, President Donald Trump declined to confirm that a definitive pact had been struck but characterised the talks as “moving along.” In remarks to reporters on Friday, he framed the negotiation as part of a broader reset of North American trade relationships.

“We should be able to have a deal with Canada. We’re also starting on a new deal with Mexico. A much better deal for the United States. I only make good deals,” Trump told reporters.

Simultaneously, the White House announced a three-day pause on new tariffs directed at Canada, effectively buying the negotiators a short window to close remaining gaps without the immediate threat of additional duties landing on Canadian goods.

Domestic Backlash Tests Carney’s Political Position

Prime Minister Mark Carney, who campaigned on a tough “elbows-up” posture toward American trade pressure, now faces a fractious coalition of provincial premiers, opposition politicians, and industry leaders who question whether the concessions on the table go too far. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre dismissed any arrangement that embeds “one-sided” tariffs on Canadian industry as simply “a bad deal.”

“I am concerned with the de-industrialisation of our economy if our key industries pay one-sided tariffs,” Poilievre told reporters on Friday.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew went further, publicly criticising the shape of the talks and calling Trump a “bad person,” while urging Ottawa to “fight” rather than rush into concessions. Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette, whose province hosts a large dairy industry, said on Thursday she was still analysing what the agreement would mean for local farmers before committing to restoring US alcohol sales. Doug Ford, the outspoken premier of Ontario — Canada’s most populous province — had not yet weighed in publicly. By contrast, the premiers of Nova Scotia and the Yukon territory indicated they were prepared to authorise the return of American liquor to provincial shelves.

At the municipal level, Mayor Matthew Shoemaker of an Ontario city that is home to the country’s second-largest steel producer told the CBC that a deal retaining 25 percent tariffs on the sector “wouldn’t be something to celebrate.” He expressed worry that the emerging terms would not benefit his community.

Economic Exposure and Public Sentiment

The economic arithmetic behind the deadline is stark. An analysis published Thursday by Trevor Tombe, a Calgary-based economist, estimated that implementing the threatened additional 50 percent tariff across a wide basket of Canadian goods — from hockey equipment to wine to cement — could cost roughly 90,000 jobs. That figure has intensified pressure on Carney to reach some form of agreement, even as polling data cuts the other way. A survey conducted by Leger found that 56 percent of Canadians wanted their government to maintain a hardline stance rather than make significant concessions to Washington.

The mixed signals from inside the country give Carney a narrow corridor: concede enough to avert the worst tariffs, but not so much that the deal reads as capitulation to a base that expects toughness. A leaked audio recording, in which Vice-President JD Vance told attendees at a private fundraiser on Wednesday that Carney had tried to “out-tough Donald Trump” in trade talks, suggests the American side is watching for signs of Canadian resolve as closely as it is watching the tariff numbers.

As Friday night gave way to the final hours before the deadline, the question for Ottawa was no longer whether a deal existed in principle but whether its terms could survive the gauntlet of provincial approval, opposition scrutiny, and public opinion before the midnight cutoff expired.