Politics Insider: A week of dampening expectations on trade deal with U.S.

Globe and Mail

25-07-2025

Hello, welcome to Politics Insider. Let's look at what happened this week.
President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States may not reach a new trade deal with Canada, suggesting he might instead impose more tariffs on the country unilaterally.
As Adrian Morrow reports from Washington, Trump told reporters: 'We haven't really had a lot of luck with Canada. I think Canada could be one where there's just a tariff, not really a negotiation.'
'We don't have a deal with Canada.'
His comments bookended a week where Prime Minister Mark Carney, his minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade and the country's 13 provincial and territorial premiers all signalled that trade talks aren't going smoothly.
Carney dampened expectations of a deal by the stated deadline of Aug. 1, saying at a meeting with premiers on Tuesday that Canada 'will not accept a bad deal' just to meet the deadline. The premiers joined that chorus, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford adding 'Donald Trump is very, very hard to deal with.'
And Dominic LeBlanc, Carney's point person in trade talks, said Thursday during a visit to Washington for talks with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick: 'We've made progress, but we have a lot of work in front of us.'
With the trade deadline just one week away, the rhetoric has become less reassuring.
Prime Minister Mark Carney called on Israel to give up control of aid delivery to Gaza as reports grow of mass starvation, saying, 'Canada condemns the Israeli government's failure to prevent the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian disaster in Gaza.'
Provinces push for more power over immigration, work permits
The country's 13 premiers said at this week's meeting that they wanted to take more control over immigration, stressing that they plan to use powers under the Constitution to issue work permits.
The key legal issues at the heart of the Hockey Canada verdict
All five former members of Canada's world junior hockey team who were accused of sexually assaulting a woman after a 2018 Hockey Canada gala were acquitted Thursday in a courtroom in London, Ont. Lawyers explain how the judge arrived at her ruling.
Virginia Mearns tapped as Arctic ambassador for Canada
Inuk leader Virginia Mearns has been named Canada's Arctic ambassador, with the Prime Minister asking her to represent Canadian interests in a region that's become a strategic frontier as climate change opens new shipping routes through waters rich with natural resources.
Algoma Steel seeks up to $600-million in trade-war relief
Algoma Steel Group Inc. chief executive Michael Garcia says the Canadian steel maker is in discussions with Ottawa to try to secure a financing package worth more than half a billion dollars as financial pressures mount during a trade war with the United States. One of Algoma's shareholders, Barry Zekelman, said Ottawa is acting 'like a loan shark' in the negotiations.
The Huntsville, Ont., resort of Deerhurst played host to the Council of the Federation meeting this week and the first ministers' meeting.
Fifteen years ago, that same resort made news when it was the setting for another major meeting. What was it?
Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for the answer.
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The answer to today's question:
The Deerhurst Resort was also the setting for the 2010 Group of Eight summit, hosted by then-prime minister Stephen Harper.