Who knows what happened in the final hours of intense trade negotiations between the US and Canada, former close allies and free-trade partners. At this stage only the participants. We may never get the full story, though we will get differing views, no doubt, from both sides as a blame game escalates alongside a tariff battle. Look out for more leaks.
One thing is clear. That the US wanted to tie the economic talks to national security issues, thinking that it had real leverage over Canada given the Prime Minister’s earlier enthusiasm to do just that.
In his “X” post, published just after midnight, the US Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, whose efforts may well have been undermined by his loud-mouth boss, Howard Lutnick, stressed the “missed opportunity” for an “historic economic and national security partnership.”
Partnership is not exactly the Trump administration style. But what exactly did Greer mean?
Truth is, we don’t know, but can see some of the lineaments, and none of them were likely to be good for Canada and Canadian sovereignty. Here is the key passage from his post:
“cooperate on export controls, combat transshipment, enhance digital trade, and align certain external tariffs. The offer would have led to supply chain coordination on aerospace, complementary actions to address unfair trade practices, critical minerals cooperation, increased enforcement against imports produced with forced labour.” [1]
He added, carrot for the stick, “and the announcement of formal UY.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA) negotiations.”
All of this would have made Canada subservient to whatever meandering course the Trump administration takes in its relations with the People’s Republic of China. Supply chain coordination on aerospace is a blatant buy-American demand. Enhance digital trade—hello Silicon Valley tech bros, have at us (even more than you do already). Critical minerals cooperation would destine Canada as hewers of metals for the US market.
Marco Mendicino, a former Liberal Public Safety Minister and chief of staff to Mark Carney, said on CBC’s, The House, on the morning of August 22, that it would be well to remember that Canada still has some friends in the Trump administration. I hope he is right about that, but whether that friendship can shine in Trump inner circles seems doubtful. He also argued that we still have friends in the US business community and among labour unions, and, of course, strong people-to-people ties. I am sure he is right about all that. How those voices will be heard depends in part on how active Canada can be in continuing to try to spread its message about its determination not to surrender its sovereignty or its economic strength to the demands of the Trump administration. Carney no doubt meant it when he said, in a recent New York speech, “Canada Strong can make American Great Again.” [2] But it does have its ironic overtones.
Above all, we must bury the idea of any kind of national security “partnership” with a US administration that doesn’t understand the concept.
[1] Greer, U.S. Trade Representative, X post, (BTW, scroll down for a weird anti-Carney tirade from none other than ex-whistleblower Julian Assange, somewhere in Australia)
United States Trade Representative@USTradeRep
Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week. Despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful
4:11 AM · Aug 22, 2026 · 551K Views
1.42K Replies · 969 Reposts · 4.66K Likes
[2] PM Carney speech to the Econimic Club of New York, May 28, 2026, https://www.econclubny.org/recent-speakers/-/blogs/mark-carney?_33_redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.econclubny.org%2Frecent-speakers%3Fp_p_id%3D33%26p_p_lifecycle%3D0%26p_p_state%3Dnormal%26p_p_mode%3Dview%26p_p_col_id%3Dcolumn-4%26p_p_col_count%3D1
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