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AIPROPX ReportBBC News · 1h ago
Canada and US say they are finalising a trade deal, but details remain murky
Canada and the US are finalising a highly anticipated trade deal, with President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney touting it as a success.
Trump said the proposed deal will be welcome by US farmers and manufacturers, while Carney said it will secure "the best terms" for Canada's strategic sectors and provide certainty on the future of US-Canada trade.
Trade negotiators met on Wednesday for the third time in as many days on Wednesday and after Trump paused a new wave of tariffs he had threatened to impose overnight on a range of Canadian goods.
But details on what the agreement covers, what concessions both sides have made, and what still needs to be ironed out, remain unclear.
Speaking to reporters briefly on Wednesday after a 45-minute meeting with his Canadian counterpart, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the Americans are "very happy" with the latest discussions.
He said he will soon brief Congress and US stakeholders on the deal's details.
"We feel confident that we've reached an agreement that will not only continue to protect American workers, American jobs, American supply chains, but really strengthen the North American economy," Greer said.
The deal eliminates "some of the irritants" that the US has had with Canada, he added.
Trump said Canada has agreed to eliminate tariffs on US farmers, though he did not specify which specific agricultural sectors would benefit.
Asked whether the US will also be reducing some tariffs it has placed on Canada, Trump said by "a little bit".
In a post on X, Carney congratulated Greer and Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc "for the significant progress" made in negotiations.
"We are now moving towards an agreement that reinforces that Canadian advantage, including by securing the best terms in each of Canada's most important strategic sectors and providing greater certainty about our future trading relationship," Carney wrote on Wednesday.
The prime minister is meeting with his cabinet and leaders of Canadian provinces on Wednesday afternoon to brief them on the deal.
LeBlanc and his team have been camped out in Washington for more than a week to hammer out a deal ahead of a wave of new 50% tariffs the Trump administration planned to implement on Wednesday. Those have now been paused until the weekend.
Canada has been in pursuit of a deal that would have the US drop or reduce tariffs on its steel, aluminium, automobiles and lumber.
The US, meanwhile, has been asking for a number of concessions from Canada, including removing its remaining retaliatory tariffs on American autos and adjusting its dairy quotas to allow greater access for US cheese producers.
It has also asked for the ban on US alcohol sales, imposed last year by most Canadian provinces in retaliation to Trump's tariffs, be removed.
Asked on Wednesday if the latest deal will include significant concessions on dairy, Minister LeBlanc said that Canada's dairy supply management programme - which sees production quotas, set pricing, and import quotas on dairy, eggs, and poultry - will remain "entirely intact".
Polls suggest that a majority of Canadians would be unhappy if the Carney government made significant concessions to the US, with 56% surveyed by polling firm Leger , external saying they want Canada to take a hardline approach.
But business organisations from both sides of the border have urged for a deal to be reached, cautioning that additional tariffs between the two major trading partners would be harmful for both countries.
Dennis Darby, president of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters and a member of Carney's advisory committee on Canada-US trade, told the BBC that he is optimistic a finalised deal is on the horizon.
"The committee was informed this morning that the negotiations continue and that and we're close, and that's more positive than we've seen in some time," Darby said.
He added that businesses hope this will be the first step towards a return to the terms set under the North American free trade agreement, known as USMCA, with most goods flowing tariff-free through Canada, the US and Mexico.
"Let's hope that whatever they have to negotiate gets us closer to that," he said.
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