OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — Canada has promised to drop its retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. products in an attempt to end the ongoing trade war.
On August 22, after months of the ongoing trade issues, Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a series of concessions, including dropping retaliatory tariffs on CUSMA-compliant (United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement) U.S. goods after speaking with President Donald Trump.
“In this context and consistent with Canada’s commitment to CUSMA, I am announcing today that the Canadian government will now match the United States by removing all of Canada’s tariffs on U.S. goods specifically covered under CUSMA,” Carney announced.
Under the new trade agreement, to take effect September 1, more than 85 percent of Canada-U.S. trade is now tariff-free. Twenty-five-percent tariffs will remain on non-CUSMA-compliant U.S. autos, steel, and aluminum.
The change in Canada’s policy came after Trump announced a 35 percent blanket tariff on Canadian exports beginning on August 1.
While Carney based his campaign on an “elbows up” position, promising aggressive negotiations with Trump, he appears to have backed down now that he is in office.
Instead, Carney vaguely stated that “following my conversation with the President of the United States yesterday, Canada and the United States will intensify our discussions to address current trade challenges in strategic sectors and to seize major immediate opportunities for trade, investment and security partnerships.
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre responded to the concession, questioning, “Where is the ‘master negotiator’ Canadians were promised?”
“I was expecting that when the call was reported we’d find that President Trump had given us something in return, that Mr. Carney, being the negotiator, he promised he would be, that he would get something after giving something,” Poilievre explained.
“But not so, today we learn that it is yet another capitulation and climb down by Mark Carney,” he continued.
Where is the “master negotiator” Canadians were promised? pic.twitter.com/Hsj7NE1RmP
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) August 23, 2025
During his federal election campaign, Carney repeatedly took issue with Trump and the U.S., which turned into an anti-American Canadian legacy media frenzy.
However, the reality is that after Carney won the April 28 federal election, Trump praised him, saying, “Canada chose a very talented person.”
Many political pundits have said that Carney owes his win to Trump, as the U.S. president suggested on multiple occasions that he would rather work with Carney than Poilievre.
